UW-NHLr 


B    3    1D7 


THE  SPRING  OF 
THE  YEAR 


DALLAS  LORE  SHARP 


GIFT  OF 
L.    A.    Williams 


SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR  -  SHADBUSH  (CHAPTER  I) 


THE 

SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 


BY  ;    ;J 

DALLAS   LORE  SHARP 

4UTHOR  OF  "  THE  LAY  OF  THE  LAND,"  "  THE  FACE  OF  THE 
FIELDS,"  "  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR,"  "  WINTER,"  ETC. 

ILLUSTRATED  BY 

ROBERT  BRUCE  HORSFALL 


BOSTON   NEW  YORK    CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

TOe  EitoermUe  press  Cambritip 


-^fi 

^  I  -o*r 


C,OP.YKAGJfIT»    1904,^1905;  AND    1906,    BY  THE    CHAPPLE    PUBLISHING   CO.,   LTD, 

m-RiGjrr/ icjp^^V  THE  REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS  BOOK  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    IQOS,    I9II,    AND    1912,    BY    DALLAS    LORE    SHARP 
COPYRIGHT,    1909,    BY   THE   ATLANTIC   MONTHLY   COMPANY 

ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


TO  MY  SISTER 
JENNIE 

THE  BEST  OF   COMPANIONS 

IN  THE  WOODS    AND  FIELDS 

THROUGH  WHICH   WE 

WENT  TO   SCHOOL 


700775 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION       ...      ...      .      .      .      .      .       .     ix 

I.  SPRING  !  SPRING  !  SPRING  ! 1 

II.   THE  SPRING  RUNNING 7 

III.  AN  OLD  APPLE  TREE         .      » 13 

IV.  A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  SEE  THIS  SPRING        .      .    26 
V.  IF  YOU  HAD  WINGS     .      .  •  .  .      .      1      .      .      .      .33 

VI.  A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  Do  THIS  SPRING  ...    41 
VII.   THE  PALACE  IN  THE  PIG-PEN        ......    48 

VIII.   Is  IT  A  LIFE  OF  FEAR? .60 

IX.   THE  BUZZARD  OF  THE  BEAR  SWAMP 76 

X.   A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  HEAR  THIS  SPRING     .      .    86 

XI.   TURTLE  EGGS  FOR  AGASSIZ 94 

XII.   AN  ACCOUNT  WITH  NATURE ,      .  115 

XIII.   WOODS  MEDICINE       .        .      .      .      .      .      .      .         127 

NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS    .  ......  137 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR  —  SHADBUSH Frontispiece 

HYLAS  PEEPING  " SPRING!" 1 

"THE  EARLIEST  BLOODROOT "        . 4 

THE  TURKEY-HEN  —  "HALF  A  MILE  FROM  HOME"    ...      8 

CATFISH  FAMILY .      .      .      .      .      .12 

SCREECH  OWL  — "  OUT  OVER  THE  MEADOW  HE  SAILS"  .  .  17 
TREE-TOAD  — " COMES  FORTH  TO  THE  EDGE  OF  HIS  HOLE"  23 
SKUNK-CABBAGE  AND  BUMBLEBEE 


A  SUNFISH  OVER  ITS  NEST .29 

CRESTED  FLYCATCHER  WITH  SNAKE-SKIN 31 

"  ONE  OF  MY  LITTLE  BAND  OF  CROWS  "    -  ^'     •    33 

YOUNG  PAINTED  TURTLE,  FROGS'  EGGS,  SNAILS,  AND  WHIRLI- 
GIG BEETLES 45 

"ONE  LIVE  TOAD  UNDER  YOUR  DOORSTEP"    .      .      .      .      .46 

PH(EBE  AND  HER  YOUNG .      •      .55 

PIKE  AND  MINNOWS 62 

Fox  BARKING  — "UPON  THE  BARE  KNOLL  NEAR  THE  HOUSE"    66 
PINE  MARTEN  AND  CHIPMUNK  71 


viii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

"UPON    ONE    OF   THESE    THE    BUZZARD   SAT    HUMPED5'    ...       79 

YOUNG  TURKEY  BUZZARD 83 

BROWN  THRASHER  —  " OUR  FINEST,  MOST  GIFTED  SONGSTER"  87 
PAINTED  TURTLE  —  "  BEGAN  TO  BURY  HERSELF  "...  103 
CHIPMUNK  EATING  JUNE-BUGS 117 

"TWO  TUMBLE-BUGS  TRYING  TO  ROLL  THEIR  BALL  UP  HILL"  127 
"THE  BOX  TURTLES  SCUFF  CARELESSLY  ALONG"  .  .  130 


INTRODUCTION 

IT  has  been  my  aim  in  the  thirty-nine  chapters 
of  the  three  books  in  this  series  to  carry  my 
readers  through  the  weeks  of  all  the  school 
year,  not  however  as  with  a  calendar,  for  that  would 
be  more  or  less  wooden  and  artificial ;  but  by  read- 
ings, rather,  that  catch  in  a  large  way  the  spirit  of 
the  particular  season,  that  give  something  definite  and 
specific  in  the  way  of  suggestions  for  tramps  afield 
with  things  to  look  for  and  hear  and  do.  Naturally 
many  of  the  birds  and  animals  and  flowers  mentioned, 
as  well  as  woods  and  aspects  of  sky  and  field,  are 
those  of  my  own  local  environment  —  of  my  New 
England  surrounding  —  and  so  must  differ  in  some 
details  from  those  surrounding  you  in  your  far  South- 
ern home  or  you  on  your  distant  Pacific  coast,  or 
you  in  your  rich  and  varied  valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
or  you  on  your  wide  and  generous  prairie.  But  the 
similarities  and  correspondences,  the  things  and 
conditions  we  have  in  common,  are  more  than  our 
differences.  Our  sun,  moon,  sky,  earth  —  our  land 
—  are  the  same,  our  love  for  this  beautiful  world  is 
the  same,  as  is  that  touch  of  nature  which  we  all  feel 
and  which  makes  us  all  kin.  Wherever,  then,  in  these 
books  of  the  seasons,  the  things  treated  differ  from 


x  INTRODUCTION 

the  things  around  you,  read  about  those  things  for 
information,  and  in  your  journeys  afield  fill  in  the 
gaps  with  whatever  it  is  that  completes  your  land- 
scape, or  rounds  out  your  cycle  of  the  seasons,  or 
links  up  your  endless  chain  of  life. 

While  I  have  tried  to  be  accurate  throughout  these 
books,  still  it  has  not  been  my  object  chiefly  to  write 
a  natural  history  —  volumes  of  outdoor  facts;  but 
to  quicken  the  imaginations  behind  the  sharp  eyes, 
behind  the  keen  ears  and  the  eager  souls  of  the  mul- 
titude of  children  who  go  to  school,  as  I  used  to  go 

&  ~  o 

to  school,  through  an  open,  stirring,  beckoning  world 
of  living  things  that  I  longed  to  range  and  under- 
stand. 

The  best  thing  that  I  can  do  as  writer,  that  you 
can  do  as  teacher,  if  I  may  quote  from  the  last  para- 
graph —  the  keynote  of  these  volumes  —  is  to  "  go 
into  the  fields  and  woods,  go  deep  and  far  and  fre- 
quently, with  eyes  and  ears  and  all  your  souls  alert," 

MULLEIN  HILL,  May,  1912 


THE  SPEING  OF  THE  YEAE 


CHAPTER 


"  SPRING  !    SPRING^! 


-  l 


W~"HO  is  your  spring  messenger  ?    Is  it  bird 
or  flower  or  beast  that  brings  your  spring? 
What   sight    or    sound    or    smell    spells 
S-P-R-I-N-G  to  you,  in  big,  joyous  letters  ? 

Perhaps  it  is  the  frogs.  Certainly  I  could  not  have 
a  real  spring  without  the  frogs.  They  have  peeped 
u  Spring!  "  to  me  ev- 
ery time  I  have  had  a 
spring.  Perhaps  it  is 
the  arbutus,  or  the 
hepatica,  or  the  pus- 
sy -  willow,  or  the 
bluebird,  or  the  yel- 
low spice-bush,  or,  if 
you  chance  to  live  in  New  England,  perhaps  it  is 
the  wood  pussy  that  brings  your  spring ! 

Beast,  bird,  or  flower,  whatever  it  is,  there  comes  a 
day  and  a  messenger  and  —  spring !  You  know  that 
spring  is  here.  It  may  snow  again  before  night :  no 
matter;  your  messenger  has  brought  you  the  news, 
brought  you  the  very  spring  itself,  and  after  all 


2  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

your  waiting  through  the  winter  months  are  you 
going  to  be  discouraged  by  a  flurry  of  snow  ? 

"  All  white  and  still  lie  stream  and  hill  — 

The  winter  dread  and  drear! 

.,  t  u<l  -.'  •  •  t"V^he»  from  the  skies  a  bluebird  flies, 

'!«,«"  V   -4  V^-nd  ^-  spring  is  here!  " 

To.be  sure,  it  is:bere,  if  the  bluebird  is  your  herald. 

But  how  much  faith  in  the  weather  you  must  have, 
and  how  you  must  long  for  the  spring  before  the 
first  bluebird  brings  it  to  you !  Some  sunny  March 
day  he  drops  down  out  of  the  blue  sky,  saying  softly, 
sweetly,  "  Florida,  florida !  "  as  if  calling  the  flowers ; 
and  then  he  is  gone !  —  gone  for  days  at  a  time, 
while  it  snows  and  blows  and  rains,  freezes  and 
thaws,  thaws,  thaws,  until  the  March  mud  looks 
fitter  for  clams  than  for  flowers. 

So  it  is  with  the  other  first  signs.  If  you  want 
springtime  ahead  of  time,  then  you  must  have  it  in 
your  heart,  out  of  reach  of  the  weather,  just  as  you 
must  grow  cucumbers  in  a  hothouse  if  you  want 
them  ahead  of  time.  But  there  comes  a  day  when 
cucumbers  will  grow  out  of  doors  ;  and  there  comes 
a  day  when  the  bluebird  and  the  song  sparrow  and 
all  the  other  heralds  stay,  when  spring  has  come 
whether  you  have  a  heart  or  not. 

What  day  is  that  in  your  out-of-doors,  and  what 
sign  have  you  to  mark  it  ?  Mr.  John  Burroughs  says 
his  sign  is  the  wake-robin,  or  trillium.  When  I  was 
a  school-boy  it  used  to  be  for  me  the  arbutus  ;  but 


SPRING!  SPRING!  SPRING!  3 

nowadays  it  is  the  shadbush :  I  have  no  sure  settled 
spring  until  I  see  the  shadbush  beginning  to  open 
misty  white  in  the  edge  of  the  woods.  Then  I  can 
trust  the  weather ;  I  can  open  my  beehives ;  I  can 
plough  and  plant  my  garden ;  I  can  start  into  the 
woods  for  a  day  with  the  birds  and  flowers;  for 
when  the  shadbush  opens,  the  great  gate  to  the 
woods  and  fields  swings  open — wide  open  to  let 
everybody  in. 

But  perhaps  you  do  not  know  what  the  shadbush 
is?  That  does  not  matter.  You  can  easily  enough 
find  that  out.  Some  call  it  June-berry;  others  call  it 
service-berry;  and  the  botany  calls  it  A-me-lan' chi-er 
ca-na-deri 'sis  !  But  that  does  not  matter  either.  For 
this  is  not  a  botany  lesson.  It  is  an  account  of  how 
springtime  comes  to  me,  and  when  and  what  are  its 
signs.  And  I  would  have  you  read  it  to  think  how 
springtime  comes  to  you,  and  when  and  what  are 
its  signs.  So,  if  the  dandelion,  and  not  the  shadbush, 
is  your  sign,  then  you  must  read  "  dandelion  "  here 
every  time  I  write  "  shadbush." 

There  is  an  old  saying,  "He  that  would  bring 
home  the  wealth  of  the  Indies  must  carry  the  wealth 
of  the  Indies  out " ;  which  is  to  say,  those  who 
bring  home  the  wealth  of  the  Indies,  must  carry  out 
some  kind  of  wealth  in  exchange.  So  you  who  would 
enjoy  or  understand  what  my  shadbush  means  to  me 
must  have  a  shadbush  of  your  own,  or  a  dandelion, 
or  something  that  is  a  sign  to  you  that  spring  is  here. 


4  THE   SPRING  OF  THE   YEAR 

Then,  you  see,  my  chapter  in  the  book  will  become 
your  own. 

There  are  so  many  persons  who  do  not  know  one 
bird  from  another,  one  tree  from  another,  one  flower 
from  another ;  who  would  not  know  one  season  from 
another  did  they  not  see  the  spring  hats  in  the  mil- 
liner's window  or  feel  the  need  of  a 
change  of  coat.  I  hope  you  are  not 
one  of  them.  I  hope  you  are 
on  the  watch,  instead,  for  the 
first  phcebe  or  the  earliest 
bloodroot,  or  are  listening  to 
catch  the  shrill,  brave  peep- 
ing of  the  little  tree-frogs, 
the  hylas. 

As  for  me,  I  am  on  the  watch 
for  the  shadbush.  Oh,  yes,  spring 
comes  before  the  shadbush  opens,  but 
it  is  likely  not  to  stay.  The  wild  geese 
trumpet  spring  in  the  gray  March  skies 
as  they  pass ;  a  February  rain,  after  a 
long  cold  season  of  snow,  spatters  your  face  with 
spring ;  the  swelling  buds  on  the  maples,  the  fuzzy 
kittens  on  the  pussy-willows,  the  opening  marsh- 
marigolds  in  the  meadows,  the  frogs,  the  bluebirds 
—  all  of  these,  while  they  stay,  are  the  spring.  But 
they  are  not  sure  to  stay  over  night,  here  in  New 
England.  You  may  wake  up  and  find  it  snowing  — 
until  the  shadbush  opens.  After  that,  hang  up  your 


SPRING!   SPRING!   SPRING!  5 

sled  and  skates,  put  away  your  overcoat  and  mittens ; 
for  spring  is  here,  and  the  honey-bees  will  buzz  every 
bright  day  until  the  October  asters  are  in  bloom. 

I  said  if  you  want  springtime  ahead  of  time  you 
must  have  it  in  your  heart.  Of  course  you  must. 
If  your  heart  is  warm  and  your  eye  is  keen,  you  can 
go  forth  in  the  dead  of  winter  and  gather  buds,  seeds, 
cocoons,  and  living  things  enough  to  make  a  little 
spring.  For  the  fires  of  summer  are  never  wholly 
out.  They  are  only  banked  in  the  winter,  smoulder- 
ing always  under  the  snow,  and  quick  to  brighten 
and  burst  into  blaze.  There  comes  a  warm  day  in 
January,  and  across  your  thawing  path  crawls  a 
woolly-bear  caterpillar ;  a  mourning-cloak  butter- 
fly flits  through  the  woods,  and  the  j uncos  sing. 
That  night  a  howling  snowstorm  sweeps  out  of  the 
north ;  the  coals  are  covered  again.  So  they  kindle 
and  darken,  until  they  leap  from  the  ashes  of  winter 
a  pure,  thin  blaze  in  the  shadbush,  to  burn  higher 
and  hotter  across  the  summer,  to  flicker  and  die 
away  —  a  line  of  yellow  embers  —  in  the  weird 
witch-hazel  of  the  autumn. 

At  the  sign  of  the  shadbush  the  doors  of  my 
springtime  swing  wide  open.  My  birds  are  back,  my 
turtles  are  out,  my  long  sleeping  woodchucks  are 
wide  awake.  There  is  not  a  stretch  of  woodland  or 
meadow  now  that  shows  a  trace  of  winter.  Over  the 
pasture  the  bluets  are  beginning  to  drift,  as  if  the 
haze  on  the  distant  hills,  floating  down  in  the  night, 


6  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

had  been  caught  in  the  dew-wet  grass.  They  wash 
the  field  to  its  borders  in  their  delicate  azure  hue. 
At  the  sign  of  the  shadbush  the  doors  of  my  mem- 
ory, too,  swing  wide  open,  and  I  am  a  boy  again  in 
the  meadows  of  my  old  home.  The  shadbush  is  in 
blossom,  and  the  fish  are  running  —  the  sturgeon 
up  the  Delaware ;  the  shad  up  Cohansey  Creek ; 
and  through  the  Lower  Sluice,  these  soft,  stirring 
nights,  the  catfish  are  slipping.  Is  there  any  real 
boy  now  in  Lupton's  Meadows  to  watch  them  come  ? 
Oh  yes,  doubtless  ;  and  doubtless  there  ever  shall  be. 
But  I  would  go  down  for  this  one  night,  down  in  the 
May  moonlight,  and  listen,  as  I  used  to  listen  years 
ago,  for  the  quiet  splash  splash  sf)lash,  as  the  swarm- 
ing catfish  pass  through  the  shallows  of  the  main 
ditch,  up  toward  the  dam  at  the  pond. 

At  the  sign  of  the  shadbush  how  swiftly  the  tides 
of  life  begin  to  rise !  How  mysteriously  their  cur- 
rents run  !  —  the  fish  swimming  in  from  the  sea, 
the  birds  flying  up  from  the  South,  the  flowers  open- 
ing fresh  from  the  soil,  the  insects  coming  out  from 
their  sleep :  life  moving  everywhere  —  across  the 
heavens,  over  the  earth,  along  the  deep,  dim  aisles  of 
the  sea! 


CHAPTER   II 

THE     SPRING    RUNNING 

THIS  title  is  Kipling's ;  the  observations  that 
follow  are  mine ;  but  the  real  spring  run- 
ning is  yours  and  mine  and  Kipling's  and 
Mowgli  the  wolf-child's,  whose  running  Kipling  has 
told  us  about.  Indeed,  every  child  of  the  earth  has 
felt  it,  has  had  the  running  — every  living  thing  of 
the  land  and  the  sea. 

Everything  feels  it ;  everything  is  restless,  every- 
thing is  moving.  The  renter  changes  houses;  the 
city  dweller  goes  "  down  to  the  shore  "  or  up  to  the 
mountains  to  open  his  summer  cottage;  the  farmer 
starts  to  break  up  the  land  for  planting;  the  school- 
children begin  to  squirm  in  their  seats  and  long  to 
fly  out  of  the  windows ;  and  "  Where  are  you  going 
this  summer?  "  is  on  every  one's  lips. 

They  have  all  caught  the  spring  running,  the 
only  infection  I  know  that  you  can  catch  from  April 
skies.  The  very  sun  has  caught  it,  too,  and  is  length- 
ening out  his  course,  as  if  he  hated  to  stop  and  go 
to  bed  at  night.  And  the  birds,  that  are  supposed 
to  go  to  bed  most  promptly,  they  sleep,  says  the 
good  old  poet  Chaucer,  with  open  eye,  these  April 
nights,  so  bad  is  their  case  of  spring  running, — 

"  So  priketh  hem  Nature  in  hir  corages."  l 
1  So  nature  pricks  (stirs)  them  in  their  hearts. 


8  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

Their  long  journey  northward  over  sea  and  land  has 
not  cured  them  yet  of  their  unrest.  Only  one  thing 
will  do  it  (and  I  suppose  we  all  should  be  glad),  one 
sovereign  remedy,  and  that  is  family  cares.  But 
they  are  yet  a  long  way  off. 

Meantime  watch  your  turkey-hen,  how  she  saunters 
down  the  field  alone,  how  pensive  she  looks,  how 
lost  for  something  to  do  and  somewhere  to  go.  She 
is  sick  with  this  disease  of  spring.  Follow  her,  keep- 
ing out  of  sight 
yourself,  an  dlo, 
a  nest,  hidden 
under 


a  pile  of  brush  in  a  corner  of  the  pasture  fence,  half 
a  mile  from  home  ! 

The  turkey-hen  has  wandered  off  half  a  mile  to 
build  her  nest ;  but  many  wild  birds  have  come  on 
their  small  wings  all  the  way  from  the  forests  of  the 
Amazon  and  have  gone  on  to  Hudson  Bay  and  the 
Fur  Countries,  just  to  build  their  nests  and  rear 
their  young.  A  wonderful  case  of  the  spring  run- 
ning, you  would  say ;  and  still  more  wonderful  is  the 
annual  journey  of  the  golden  plover  from  Patagonia 
to  Alaska  and  back,  eight  thousand  miles  each  way. 
Yet  there  is  another  case  that  seems  to  me  more 
mysterious,  and  quite  as  wonderful,  as  the  sea  seems 
more  mysterious  than  the  land. 


THE   SPRING  RUNNING  9 

It  is  the  spring  running  of  the  fish.  For  when  the 
great  tidal  waves  of  bird-life  begin  to  roll  north- 
ward with  the  sun,  a  corresponding  movement  begins 
among  the  denizens  of  the  sea.  The  cold-blooded 
fish  feel  the  stirring;  the  spring  running  seizes  them, 
and  in  they  come  through  the  pathless  wastes  of  the 
ocean,  waves  of  them,  shoals  of  them,  —  sturgeon, 
shad,  herring,  —  like  the  waves  and  flocks  of  wild 
geese,  warblers,  and  swallows  overhead,  —  into  the 
brackish  water  of  the  bays  and  rivers  and  on  (the 
herring)  into  the  fresh  water  of  the  ponds. 

To  watch  the  herring  come  up  Weymouth  Back 
River  into  Herring  Run  here  near  my  home,  as  I  do 
every  April,  is  to  watch  one  of  the  most  interesting, 
most  mysterious  movements  of  all  nature.  It  was 
about  a  century  ago  that  men  of  Weymouth  brought 
herring  in  barrels  of  water  by  ox-teams  from  Taun- 
ton  River  and  liberated  them  in  the  pond  at  the 
head  of  Weymouth  Back  River.  These  fish  laid  their 
eggs  in  the  grassy  margins  of  the  pond  that  spring 
and  went  out  down  the  river  to  the  sea.  Later  on, 
the  young  fry,  when  large  enough  to  care  for  them- 
selves, found  their  way  down  the  river  and  out  to  sea. 

And  where  did  they  go  then  ?  and  what  did  they 
do?  Who  can  tell?  for  who  can  read  the  dark  book 
of  the  sea?  Yet  this  one  thing  we  know  they  did, 
for  still  they  are  doing  it  after  all  these  hundred 
years,  —  they  came  back  up  the  river,  when  they 
were  full-grown,  —  up  the  river,  up  the  run,  up  into 


10  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

the  pond,  to  lay  their  eggs  in  the  waters  where  they 
were  hatched,  in  the  waters  that  to  them  were  home. 

Something  very  much  like  this  all  the  other  fish 
are  doing,  as  are  the  birds  also.  The  spell  of 
home  is  over  land  and  sea,  and  has  been  laid  upon 
them  all.  The  bird  companies  of  the  fall  went 
south  at  the  inexorable  command  of  Hunger ;  but 
a  greater  than  Hunger  is  in  command  of  the  forces 
of  spring.  Now  our  vast  bird  army  of  North  Amer- 
ica, five  billion  strong,  is  moving  northward  at  the 
call  of  Home.  And  the  hosts  of  the  sea,  whose 
shining  billions  we  cannot  number,  —  they,  too,  are 
coming  up,  some  of  them  far  up  through  the  shal- 
low streams  to  the  wood-walled  ponds  for  a  drink  of 
the  sweet  waters  of  Home. 

As  a  boy  I  used  to  go  down  to  the  meadows  at 
night  to  hear  the  catfish  coming,  as  now  I  go  down 
to  the  village  by  day  to  see  the  herring  coming.  The 
catfish  would  swim  in  from  the  Cohansey,  through 
the  sluices  in  the  bank,  then  up  by  way  of  the  meadow 
ditches  to  the  dam  over  which  fall  the  waters  of  Lup- 
ton's  Pond. 

It  was  a  seven-  or  eight-foot  dam,  and  of  course 
the  fish  could  not  climb  it.  Down  under  the  splash- 
ing water  they  would  crowd  by  hundreds,  their 
moving  bodies  close-packed,  pushing  forward,  all 
trying  to  break  through  the  wooden  wall  that  blocked 
their  way.  Slow,  stupid  things  they  looked  ;  but  was 
not  each  big  cat  head  pointed  forward?  each  slow, 


THE  SPRING  RUNNING  11 

cold  brain  trying  to  follow  and  keep  up  with  each 
swift,  warm  heart?  For  the  homeward-bound  heart 
knows  no  barrier;  it  never  stops  for  a  dam. 

The  herring,  too,  on  their  way  up  the  run  are 
stopped  by  a  dam;  but  the  town,  in  granting  to  cer- 
tain men  the  sole  rights  to  catch  the  fish,  stipulated 
that  a  number  of  the  live  herring,  as  many  .as  several 
barrels  full,  should  be  helped  over  the  dam  each 
spring  that  they  might  go  on  up  to  the  pond  to  de- 
posit their  eggs.  If  this  were  not  done  annually,  the 
fish  would  soon  cease  to  come,  and  the  Weymouth 
herring  would  be  no  more. 

There  was  no  such  lift  for  the  catfish  under  Lup- 
ton's  dam.  I  often  tossed  them  over  into  the  pond, 
and  so  helped  to  continue  the  line;  but  perhaps  there 
was  no  need,  for  spring  after  spring  they  returned. 
They  were  the  young  fish,  I  suppose,  new  each  year, 
from  parent  fish  that  remain  inside  the  pond  the  year 
round. 

I  cannot  say  now  —  I  never  asked  myself  before — 
whether  it  is  Mother  or  Father  Catfish  who  stays  with 
the  swarm  (it  is  literally  a  swarm)  of  kitten  catfish. 
It  may  be  father,  as  in  the  case  of  Father  Stickleback 
and  Father  Toadfish,  who  cares  for  the  children.  If 
it  is  —  I  take  off  my  hat  to  him.  I  have  four  of 
my  own ;  and  I  think  if  I  had  eighteen  or  twenty 
more  I  should  have  both  hands  full.  But  Father  Cat- 
fish !  Did  you  ever  see  his  brood  ? 

I  should  say  that  there  might  easily  be  five  hun- 


12  THE  SPRING   OF  THE  YEAR 

dred  young  ones  in  the  family,  though  I  never  have 
counted  them.  But  you  might.  If  you  want  to  try 
it,  take  your  small  scoop-net  of  coarse  cheesecloth, 
or  mosquito-netting,  and  go.  down  to  the  pond  this 
spring.  Close  along  the  margin  you  will  see  holes 
in  the  shallow  water  running  up  under  the  over- 
hanging grass  and  roots.  The  holes  were  made  prob- 
ably by  the  muskrats.  It  is  in  here  that  the  old 
catfish  is  guarding  the  brood. 

As  soon  as  you  learn  to  know  the  holes,  you  can 
cover   the   entrance   with  your  net,  and    then   by 

jumping  or  stamp- 
ing hard  on  the 
ground  above  the 


hole,  you  will  drive  out  the  old  fish  with  a  flop,  the 
family  following  in  a  fine,  black  cloud.  The  old  fish 
will  swim  away,  then  come  slowly  back  to  the  scat- 
tered swarm,  to  the  little  black  things  that  look  like 
small  tadpoles,  who  soon  cluster  about  the  parent 
once  more  and  wiggle  away  into  the  deep,  dark 
water  of  the  pond  —  the  strangest  family  group 
that  I  know  in  all  the  spring  world. 


CHAPTER   III 

AN    OLD    APPLE    TREE 

BEYOND   the  meadow,  perhaps  half  a  mile 
from  my  window,  stands  an  old  apple  tree, 
the  last  of  an  ancient  line  that  once  marked 
the  boundary  between  the  "  upper  "  and  the  "lower" 
pastures.  It  is  a  bent,  broken,  hoary  old  tree,  grizzled 
with  suckers  from  feet  to  crown.  No  one  has  pruned 
it  for  half  a  century ;  no  one  ever  gathers  its  gnarly 
apples  —  no  one  but  the  cattle  who  love  to  lie  in  its 
shadow  and  munch  its  fruit. 

The  cows  know  the  tree.    One  of  their  winding 

o 

paths  runs  under  its  low-hung  branches ;  and  as  I 
frequently  travel  the  cow-paths,  I  also  find  my  way 
thither.  Yet  I  do  not  go  for  apples,  nor  just  be- 
cause the  cow-path  takes  me.  That  old  apple  tree  is 
hollow,  hollow  all  over,  trunk  and  branches,  as  hol- 
low as  a  lodging-house ;  and  I  have  never  known  it 
when  it  was  not  "  putting  up  "  some  wayfaring  vis- 
itor or  some  permanent  lodger.  So  I  go  over,  when- 
ever 1  have  a  chance,  to  call  upon  my  friends  or  pay 
my  respects  to  the  distinguished  guests. 

This  old  tree  is  on  the  neighboring  farm.  It  does 
not  belong  to  me,  and  I  am  glad ;  for  if  it  did,  then 
I  should  have  to  trim  it,  and  scrape  it,  and  plaster 


14  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

up  its  holes,  and  put  a  burlap  petticoat  on  it,  all  be- 
cause of  the  gruesome  gypsy  moths  that  infest  my 
trees.  Oh,  yes,  that  would  make  it  bear  better  ap- 
ples, but  what  then  would  become  of  its  birds  and 
beasts?  Everybody  ought  to  have  one  apple  tree 
that  bears  birds  and  beasts  —  and  Baldwin  apples, 
too,  of  course,  if  the  three  sorts  of  fruit  can  be 
made  to  grow  on  the  same  tree.  But  only  the  birds 
and  beasts  grow  well  on  the  untrimmed,  unscraped, 
unplastered,  unpetticoated  old  tree  yonder  between 
the  pastures.  His  heart  is  wide  open  to  every  small 
traveler  passing  by. 

Whenever  I  look  over  toward  the  old  tree,  I  think 
of  the  old  vine-covered,  weather-beaten  house  in 
which  my  grandfather  lived,  where  many  a  traveler 
put  up  over  night — to  get  a  plate  of  grandmother's 
buckwheat  cakes,  I  think,  and  a  taste  of  her  keen 
wit.  The  old  house  sat  in  under  a  grove  of  pin  oak 
and  pine, — "Underwood"  we  called  it,  —  a  shel- 
tered, sheltering  spot ;  with  a  peddler's  stall  in  the 
barn,  a  peddler's  place  at  the  table,  a  peddler's  bed 
in  the  herby  garret,  a  boundless,  fathomless  feather- 
bed, of  a  piece  with  the  house  and  the  hospitality. 
There  were  larger  houses  and  newer,  in  the  neigh- 
borhood ;  but  no  other  house  in  all  the  region,  not 
even  the  tavern,  two  miles  farther  down  the  pike, 
was  half  so  central,  or  so  homelike,  or  so  full  of 
sweet  and  juicy  gossip.  The  old  apple  tree  yonder 
between  the  woods  and  the  meadow  is  as  central,  as 


AN  OLD  APPLE  TREE  15 

hospitable,  and,  if  animals  talk  with  one  another, 
just  as  full  of  neighborhood  news  as  was  grand- 
father's roof-tree. 

Of  course  you  would  never  suspect  it,  passing  by. 
But  then,  no  lover  of  wild  things  passes  by  —  never 
without  first  stopping,  and  especially  before  an  old 
tree  all  full  of  holes.  Whenever  you  see  a  hole  in  a 
tree,  in  a  sand-bank,  in  a  hillside,  under  a  rail-pile 
—  anywhere  out  of  doors,  stop  ! 

Stop  here  beside  this  decrepit  apple  tree.  No,  you 
will  find  no  sign  swinging  from  the  front,  no  door- 
plate,  no  letter-box  bearing  the  name  of  the  family 
residing  here.  The  birds  and  beasts  do  not  adver- 
tise their  houses  so.  They  would  hide  their  houses, 
they  would  have  you  pass  by ;  for  most  persons  are 
rude  in  the  woods  and  fields,  breaking  into  the 
homes  of  the  wood-folk  as  they  never  would  dream 
of  doing  in  the  case  of  their  human  neighbors. 

There  is  no  need  of  being  rude  anywhere,  no 
need  of  being  an  unwelcome  visitor  even  to  the  shy- 
est and  most  timid  of  the  little  people  of  the  fields. 
Come  over  with  me  —  they  know  me  in  the  old  apple 
tree.  It  is  nearly  sundown.  The  evening  is  near, 
with  night  at  its  heels,  for  it  is  an  early  March  day. 

We  shall  not  wait  long.  The  doors  will  open  that 
we  may  enter  — enter  into  a  home  of  the  fields,  and, 
a  little  way  at  least,  into  a  life  of  the  fields,  for,  as 
I  have  said,  this  old  tree  has  a  small  dweller  of  some 
sort  the  year  round. 


16  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

On  this  March  day  we  shall  be  admitted  by  my 
owls.  They  take  possession  late  in  winter  and  oc- 
cupy the  tree,  with  some  curious  fellow  tenants,  un- 
til early  summer.  I  can  count  upon  these  small 
screech  owls  by  February,  —  the  forlorn  month,  the 
seasonless,  hopeless,  lifeless  month  of  the  year,  but 
for  its  owls,  its  thaws,  its  lengthening  days,  its 
cackling  pullets,  its  possible  bluebirds,  and  its  being 
the  year's  end!  At  least  the  ancients  called  Feb- 
ruary, not  December,  the  year's  end,  maintaining, 
with  some  sense,  that  the  making  of  the  world  was 
begun  in  March,  that  is,  with  the  spring.  The  owls 
do  not,  like  the  swallows,  bring  the  spring,  but  they 
nevertheless  help  winter  with  most  seemly  haste  into 
an  early  grave. 

If,  as  the  dusk  comes  down,  I  cannot  go  over  to 
the  tree,  I  will  go  to  my  window  and  watch.  I  can- 
not see  him,  the  grim-beaked  baron  with  his  hooked 
talons,  his  ghostly  wings,  his  night-seeing  eyes,  but 
I  know  that  he  has  come  to  his  window  in  the  apple- 
tree  turret  yonder  against  the  darkening  sky,  and 
that  he  watches  with  me.  I  cannot  see  him  swoop 
downward  over  the  ditches,  nor  see  him  quarter  the 
meadow,  beating,  dangling,  dropping  between  the 
flattened  tussocks;  nor  can  I  hear  him,  as,  back  on 
the  silent  shadows,  he  slants  upward  again  to  his 
tower.  Mine  are  human  eyes,  human  ears.  Even 
the  quick-eared  meadow  mouse  did  not  hear  until 
the  long  talons  closed  and  it  was  too  late. 


SCREECH  OWL  -  "  OUT  OVER  THE  MEADOW  HE  SAILS  " 


18  THE  SPRING  OF   THE  YEAR 

But  there  have  been  times  when,  like  some  belated 
traveler,  I  have  been  forced  to  cross  this  wild  night- 
land  of  his ;  and  I  have  felt  him  pass  —  so  near  at 
times  that  he  has  stirred  my  hair,  by  the  wind — dare  I 
say  ? — of  his  mysterious  wings.  At  other  times  I  have 
heard  him.  Often  on  the  edge  of  night  I  have  lis- 
tened to  his  quavering,  querulous  cry  from  the  elm- 
tops  below  me  by  the  meadow.  But  oftener  I  have 
watched  at  the  casement  here  in  my  castle  wall. 

Away  yonder  on  the  borders  of  night,  dim  and 
gloomy,  looms  his  ancient  keep.  I  wait.  Soon  on  the 
deepened  dusk  spread  his  soft  wings,  out  over  the 
meadow  he  sails,  up  over  my  wooded  height,  over 
my  moat,  to  my  turret  tall,  as  silent  and  unseen  as 
the  soul  of  a  shadow,  except  he  drift  across  the  face 
of  the  full  round  moon,  or  with  his  weird  cry  cause 
the  dreaming  quiet  to  stir  in  its  sleep  and  moan. 

Now  let  us  go  over  again  to  the  old  tree,  this  time 
in  May.  It  will  be  curious  enough,  as  the  soft  dusk 
comes  on,  to  see  the  round  face  of  the  owl  in  one 
hole  and,  out  of  another  hole  in  the  broken  limb 
above,  the  flat,  weazened  face  of  a  little  tree-toad. 

Both  creatures  love  the  dusk;  both  have  come 
forth  to  their  open  doors  to  watch  the  darkening; 
both  will  make  off  under  the  cover  of  the  night — 
one  for  mice  and  frogs  over  the  meadow,  the  other 
for  slugs  and  insects  over  the  crooked,  tangled  limbs 
o£  the  apple  tree. 

It  is  strange  enough  to  see  them  together,  but  it 


AN  OLD  APPLE  TREE  19 

is  stranger  still  to  think  of  them  together;  for  it  is 
just  such  prey  as  this  little  toad  that  the  owl  has 
gone  over  the  meadow  to  catch. 

Why  does  he  not  take  the  supper  ready  here  on 
the  shelf?  There  may  be  reasons  that  we,  who  do 
not  eat  tree-toad,  know  nothing  of  ;  but  I  am  inclined 
to  believe  that  the  owl  has  never  seen  his  fellow 
lodger  in  the  doorway  above,  though  he  must  often 
have  heard  him  trilling  gently  and  lonesomely  in  the 
gloaming,  when  his  skin  cries  for  rain! 

Small  wonder  if  they  have  never  met !  for  this 
gray,  squat,  disk-toed  little  monster  in  the  hole,  or 
flattened  on  the  bark  of  the  tree  like  a  patch  of  li- 
chen, may  well  be  one  of  the  things  that  are  hidden 
from  even  the  sharp-eyed  owl.  It  is  always  a  source  of 
fresh  amazement,  the  way  that  this  largest  of  the 
hylas,  on  the  moss-marked  rind  of  an  old  tree,  can 
utterly  blot  himself  out  before  your  staring  eyes. 

The  common  toads  and  all  the  frogs  have  enemies 
enough,  and  it  would  seem  from  the  comparative 
scarcity  of  the  tree-toads  that  they  must  have  en- 
emies, too ;  but  I  do  not  know  who  they  are.  This 
scarcity  of  the  tree-toads  is  something  of  a  puzzle, 
and  all  the  more  to  me,  that,  to  my  certain  knowl- 
edge, this  toad  has  lived  in  the  old  Baldwin  tree, 
now,  for  five  years.  Perhaps  he  has  been  several 
toads,  you  say,  not  one;  for  who  can  tell  one  tree- 
toad  from  another  ?  Nobody ;  and  for  that  reason  1 
made,  some  time  ago,  a  simple  experiment,  in  order 


20  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

to  see  how  long  a  tree-toad  might  live,  unprotected, 
in  his  own  natural  environment. 

Upon  moving  into  this  house,  about  nine  years 
ago,  we  found  a  tree-toad  living  in  the  big  hickory 
by  the  porch.  For  the  next  three  springs  he  reap- 
peared, and  all  summer  long  we  would  find  him,  now 
on  the  tree,  now  on  the  porch,  often  on  the  railing 
and  backed  tight  up  against  a  post.  Was  he  one  or 
many  ?  we  asked.  Then  we  marked  him  ;  and  for  the 
next  four  years  we  knew  that  he  was  himself  alone. 
How  many  more  years  he  might  have  lived  in  the 
hickory  for  us  all  to  pet,  I  should  like  to  know ;  but 
last  summer,  to  our  great  sorrow,  the  gypsy  moth 
killers,  poking  in  the  hole,  hit  our  little  friend  and 
left  him  dead. 

It  was  very  wonderful  to  me,  the  instinct  for 
home  —  the  love  for  home,  I  should  like  to  call  it  — 
that  this  humble  little  creature  showed.  Now,  a  toad 
is  an  amphibian  to  the  zoologist ;  an  ugly  gnome 
with  a  jeweled  eye,  to  the  poet;  but  to  the  naturalist, 
the  lover  of  life  for  its  own  sake,  who  lives  next 
door  to  his  toad,  who  feeds  him  a  fly  or  a  fat  grub 
now  and  then,  who  tickles  him  to  sleep  with  a  rose 
leaf,  who  waits  as  thirstily  as  the  hilltop  for  him 
to  call  the  summer  rain,  who  knows  his  going  to 
sleep  for  the  winter,  his  waking  up  for  the  spring 
—  to  such  a  one,  I  say,  a  tree-toad  means  more 
than  the  jeweled  eye  and  the  strange  amphibious 
habits. 


AN  OLD  APPLE  TREE  21 

This  small  tree-toad  had  a  home,  had  it  in  a  tree, 
too,  —  in  a  hickory  tree,  —  this  toad  that  dwelt  by 
my  house. 

"  East,  west, 
Hame  »s  best," 

croaked  our  tree-toad  in  a  tremulous,  plaintive  song 
that  wakened  memories  in  the  vague  twilight  of  more 
old,  unhappy,  far-off  things  than  any  other  voice  I 
ever  knew. 

These  two  tree-toads  could  not  have  been  induced 
to  trade  houses,  the  hickory  for  the  apple,  because  a 
house  to  a  toad  means  home,  and  a  home  is  never  in 
the  market.  There  are  many  more  houses  in  the  land 
than  homes.  Most  of  us  are  only  real-estate  dealers. 
Many  of  us  have  never  had  a  home  ;  and  none  of 
us  has  ever  had,  perhaps,  more  than  one,  or  could 
have  —  that  home  of  our  childhood. 

This  toad  seemed  to  feel  it  all.  Here  in  the  hickory 
for  four  years  (more  nearly  seven,  I  am  sure)  he 
lived,  single  and  alone.  He  would  go  down  to  the 
meadow  when  the  toads  gathered  there  to  lay  their 
eggs;  but  back  he  would  come,  without  mate  or 
companion,  to  his  tree.  Stronger  than  love  of  kind, 
than  love  of  mate,  constant  and  dominant  in  his  slow 
cold  heart  was  his  instinct  for  home. 

If  I  go  down  to  the  orchard  and  bring  up  from 
an  apple  tree  some  other  toad  to  dwell  in  the  hole 
of  the  hickory,  I  shall  fail.  He  might  remain  for  the 
day,  but  not  throughout  the  night,  for  with  the 


22  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

gathering  twilight  there  steals  upon  him  an  irresist- 
ible longing ;  and  guided  by  it,  as  bee  and  pigeon 
and  dog  and  man  are  guided,  he  makes  his  sure  way 
back  to  his  orchard  home. 

Would  my  toad  of  the  Baldwin  tree  go  back  be- 
yond the  orchard,  over  the  road,  over  the  wide 
meadow,  over  to  the  old  tree,  half  a  mile  away,  if  I 
brought  him  from  there  ?  We  shall  see.  During  the 
coming  summer  I  shall  mark  him  in  some  manner, 
and  bringing  him  here  to  the  hickory,  I  shall  then 
watch  the  old  apple  tree  yonder  to  see  if  he  re- 
turns. It  will  be  a  hard,  perilous  journey.  But  his 
longing  will  not  let  him  rest;  and,  guided  by  his 
mysterious  sense  of  direction,  —  for  that  one  place, 
—  he  will  arrive,  I  am  sure,  or  he  will  die  on  the 

^ay- 
Suppose  he  never  gets  back  ?  Only  one  toad  less  ? 
A  great  deal  more  than  that.  There  in  the  old  Bald- 
win he  has  made  his  home  for  I  don't  know7  how 
long,  hunting  over  its  world  of  branches  in  the  sum- 
mer, sleeping  down  in  its  deep  holes  during  the 
winter — down  under  the  chips  and  punk  and  cast- 
ings, beneath  the  nest  of  the  owls,  it  may  be  ;  for 
my  toad  in  the  hickory  always  buried  himself  so, 
down  in  the  debris  at  the  bottom  of  the  hole,  where, 
in  a  kind  of  cold  storage,  he  preserved  himself  until 
thawed  out  by  the  spring. 

I  never  pass  the  old  apple  in  the  summer  but  that 
I  stop  to  pay  my  respects  to  the  toad ;  nor  in  the 


AN  OLD  APPLE  TREE  23 

•winter  that  I  do  not  pause  and  think  of  him  asleep 
in  there.  He  is  no  longer  mere  toad.  He  has  passed 
into  the  Guardian  Spirit  of  the  tree,  warring  in  the 
green  leaf  against  worm  and  grub  and  slug,  and  in 
the  dry  leaf  hiding  himself,  a  heart  of  life,  within 
the  thin  ribs,  as  if  to  save  the  old  shell  of  a  tree  to 
another  summer. 

Often  in  the  dusk,  especially  the  summer  dusk,  I 
have  gone  over  to  sit  at  his  feet  and  learn  some  of 
the  things  that  my  school-teachers  and  college  pro- 
fessors did  not  teach  me. 

Seating  myself  comfortably  at  the  foot  of  the  tree, 
I  wait.  The  toad  comes  forth  to  the  edge 
of  his  hole  above  me,  settles  himself 
comfortably,  and  waits.  And  the  / 
lesson  begins.  The  quiet  of  the 
summer  evening  steals  out 
with  the  wood-shadows  and 
softly  covers  the  fields.  We 
do  not  stir.  An  hour  passes. 
We  do  not  stir.  Not  to  stir 
is  the  lesson  —  one  of  the  primary  lessons  in  this 
course  with  the  toad. 

The  dusk  thickens.  The  grasshoppers  begin  to 
strum;  the  owl  slips  out  and  drifts  away;  a  whip- 
poor-will  drops  on  the  bare  knoll  near  me,  clucks  and 
shouts  and  shouts  again,  his  rapid  repetition  a  thou- 
sand times  repeated  by  the  voices  that  call  to  one 
another  down  the  long  empty  aisles  of  the  swamp; 


24  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

a  big  moth  whirs  about  my  head  and  is  gone ;  a  bat 
flits  squeaking  past;  a  firefly  blazes,  is  blotted  out 
by  the  darkness,  blazes  again,  and  so  passes,  his  tiny 
lantern  flashing  into  a  night  that  seems  the  darker 
for  his  quick,  unsteady  glow. 

We  do  not  stir.  It  is  a  hard  lesson.  By  all  my 
other  teachers  I  had  been  taught  every  manner  of 
stirring,  and  this  strange  exercise  of  being  still  takes 
me  where  my  body  is  weakest,  and  puts  me  almost 
out  of  breath. 

What !  out  of  breath  by  keeping  still  ?  Yes,  be- 
cause I  had  been  hurrying  hither  and  thither,  do- 
ing this  and  that  —  doing  them  so  fast  for  so  many 
years  that  I  no  longer  understood  how  to  sit  down 
and  keep  still  and  do  nothing  inside  of  me  as  well 
as  outside.  Of  course  you  know  how  to  keep  still, 
for  you  are  children.  And  so  perhaps  you  do  not  need 
to  take  lessons  of  teacher  Toad.  But  I  do,  for  I  am 
grown  up,  and  a  man,  with  a  world  of  things  to 
do,  a  great  many  of  which  I  do  not  need  to  do  at 
all  —  if  only  I  would  let  the  toad  teach  me  all  he 
knows. 

So,  when  I  am  tired,  I  will  go  over  to  the  toad.  I 
will  sit  at  his  feet,  where  time  is  nothing,  and  the 
worry  of  work  even  less.  He  has  all  time  and  no 
task.  He  sits  out  the  hour  silent,  thinking  —  I 
know  not  what,  nor  need  to  know.  So  we  will  sit  in 
silence,  the  toad  and  I,  watching  Altair  burn  along 
the  shore  of  the  horizon,  and  overhead  Arcturus,  and 


AN  OLD  APPLE  TREE  25 

the  rival  fireflies  flickering  through  the  leaves  of  the 
apple  tree.  And  as  we  watch,  I  shall  have  time  to 
rest  and  to  think.  Perhaps  I  shall  have  a  thought,  a 
thought  all  my  own,  a  rare  thing  for  any  one  to 
have,  and  worth  many  an  hour  of  waiting. 


CHAPTER  IV 

A    CHAPTER    OF    THINGS    TO    SEE   THIS    SPRING 

OUT  of  the  multitude  of  sights,  which  twelve 
sights  this  spring  shall  I  urge  you  to  see? 
Why  the  twelve,  of  course,  that  I  always  look 
for  most  eagerly.  And  the  first  of  these,  I  think,  is 
the  bluebird. 


"  Have  you  seen  a  bluebird  yet  ?  "  some  friend 
will  ask  me,  as  March  comes  on.  Or  it  will  be,  "I 
have  seen  my  first  bluebird  !  "as  if  seeing  a  first  blue- 
bird were  something  very  wonderful  and  important. 
And  so  it  is  ;  for  the  sight  of  the  first  March  blue- 
bird is  the  last  sight  of  winter  and  the  first  sight  of 
spring.  The  brown  of  the  fertile  earth  is  on  its 
breast,  the  blue  of  the  summer  sky  is  on  its  back, 
and  in  its  voice  is  the  clearest,  sweetest  of  all  invi- 
tations to  come  out  of  doors. 

Where  has  he  spent  the  winter  ?  Look  it  up.  What 
has  brought  him  back  so  early  ?  Guess  at  it.  What 
does  he  say  as  he  calls  to  you?  Listen.  What  has 
John  Burroughs  written  about  him  ?  Look  it  up 
and  read. 


THINGS  TO  SEE  THIS  SPRING 


27 


II 

You  must  see  the  skunk-cabbage  abloom  in  the 
swamp.  You  need  not  pick  it  and  carry  it  home  for 
the  table  —  just  see  it.  But  be  sure  you  see  it.  Get 
down  and  open  the  big  purple-streaked  spathe,  as  it 
spears  the  cold  mud,  and 
look  at  the  "spadix"  cov- 
ered with  its  tiny  but  per- 
fect flowers.  Now  wait  a 
minute.  The  woods  are 
still  bare ;  ice  may  still  be 
found  on  the  northern 
slopes,  while 
here  before 
you,  like  a 
wedge  split- 
ting the  fro- 
zen soil,  like  a 
spear  cleaving 
through  the 
earth  from  the 
other,  the  sum- 
mer, side  of 
the  world,  is 
this  broad  blade  of  life  letting  up  almost  the  first 
cluster  of  the  new  spring's  flowers.  Wait  a  moment 
longer  and  you  may  hear  your  first  bumblebee,  as 
he  comes  humming  at  the  door  of  the  cabbage  for 
a  taste  of  new  honey  and  pollen. 


28  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

III 

Among  the  other  early  signs  of  spring,  you  should 
see  a  flock  of  red-winged  blackbirds !  And  what 
a  sight  they  are  upon  a  snow-covered  field !  For  often 
after  their  return  it  will  snow  again,  when  the  bril- 
liant, shining  birds  in  black  with  their  red  epaulets 
make  one  of  the  most  striking  sights  of  the  season. 

IV 

Another  bird  event  that  you  should  witness  is  the 
arrival  of  the  migrating  warblers.  You  will  be  out 
one  of  these  early  May  days  when  there  will  be  a 
stirring  of  small  birds  in  the  bushes  at  your  side, 
in  the  tall  trees  over  your  head  —  everywhere!  It  is 
the  warblers.  You  are  in  the  tide  of  the  tiny  migrants 
—  yellow  warblers,  pine  warblers,  myrtle  warblers, 
black-throated  green  warblers  —  some  of  them  on 
their  way  from  South  America  to  Labrador.  You 
must  be  in  the  woods  and  see  them  as  they  come. 

V 

You  should  see  the  "spice-bush"  (wild  allspice  or 
fever-bush  or  Benjamin-bush)  in  bloom  in  the  damp 
March  woods.  And,  besides  that,  you  should  see  with 
your  own  eyes  under  some  deep,  dark  forest  trees  the 
blue  hepatica  and  on  some  bushy  hillside  the  pink 
arbutus.  (For  fear  I  forget  to  tell  you  in  the  chapter 
of  things  to  do,  let  me  now  say  that  you  should  take 
a  day  this  spring  and  go  "  may-flowering.") 


THINGS  TO  SEE  THIS  SPRING 


VI 


29 


There  are  four  nests  that  you  should  see  this 
spring:  a  hummingbird's  nest,  saddled  upon  the 
horizontal  limb  of  some  fruit  or  forest  tree,  and 
looking  more  like  a  wart  on  the  limb  than  a  nest ; 
secondly,  the  nest,  eggs  rather,  of  a  turtle  buried  in 
the  soft  sand  along  the  margin  of  a  pond  or  out 
in  some  cultivated  field;  thirdly,  the  nest  of  a  sun- 
fish  (pumpkin-seed)  in  the  shallow  water  close  up 


along  the  sandy  shore  of  the  pond;  and  fourthly, 
the  nest  of  the  red  squirrel,  made  of  fine  stripped 
cedar  bark,  away  up  in  the  top  of  some  tall  pine 
tree !  I  mean  by  this  that  there  are  many  other  in- 
teresting nest-builders  besides  the  birds.  Of  all  the 
difficult  nests  to  find,  the  hummingbird's  is  the  most 
difficult.  When  you  find  one,  please  write  to  me 
about  it. 

VII 

You  should  see  a  "spring  peeper,"  the  tiny  Pick- 
ering's frog  —  if  you  can.  The  marsh  and  the  mead- 
ows will  be  vocal  with  them,  but  one  of  the  hardest 


30  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

things  that  you  will  try  to  do  this  spring  will  be 
to  see  the  shrill  little  piper,  as  he  plays  his  bagpipe 
in  the  rushes  at  your  very  feet.  But  hunt  until  you 
do  see  him.  It  will  sharpen  your  eyes  and  steady 
your  patience  for  finding  other  things. 

VIII 

You  should  see  the  sun  come  up  on  a  May  morn- 
ing. The  dawn  is  always  a  wonderful  sight,  but 
never  at  other  times  attended  with  quite  the  glory, 
with  quite  the  music,  with  quite  the  sweet  fragrance, 
with  quite  the  wonder  of  a  morning  in  May.  Don't 
fail  to  see  it.  Don't  fail  to  rise  with  it.  You  will 
feel  as  if  you  had  wings  —  something  better  even 
than  wings. 

IX 

You  should  see  a  farmer  ploughing  in  a  large  field 
—  the  long  straight  furrows  of  brown  earth ;  the 
blackbirds  following  behind  after  worms ;  the  rip  of 
the  ploughshare ;  the  roll  of  the  soil  from  the  smooth 
mould-board — the  wealth  of  it  all.  For  in  just  such 
fields  is  the  wealth  of  the  world,  and  the  health  of 
it,  too.  Don't  miss  the  sight  of  the  ploughing. 

x 

Go  again  to  the  field,  three  weeks  later,  and  see 
it  all  green  with  sprouting  corn,  or  oats,  or  one  of  a 
score  of  crops.  Then  —  but  in  "  The  Fall  of  the 
Year  "  I  ask  you  to  go  once  more  and  see  that  field 


THINGS  TO  SEE   THIS   SPRING 


31 


all  covered  with  shocks  of  ripened  corn,  shocks  that 
are  pitched  up  and  down  its  long  rows  of  corn-butts 
like  a  vast  village  of  Indian  tepees,  each  tepee  full 

of  golden  corn. 

XI 

You  should  see,  hanging  from  a  hole  in  some  old 
apple  tree,  a  long  thin  snake-skin  !  It  is  the  latch- 
string  of  the  great  crested  fly- 
catcher. Now  why  does  this  bird 
always  use  a  snake-skin  in  his 
nest?  and  why  does  he  usually 
leave  it  hanging  loose  outside 
the  hole  ?  Questions,  these,  for 
you  to  think  about.  And  if  you 
will  look  sharp,  you  will  see  in 
even  the  commonest  things  ques- 
tions enough  to  keep  you  think- 
ing as  long  as  you  live. 

XII 

You  should  see  a  dandelion. 
A  dandelion  ?  Yes,  a  dandelion, 
"fringing  the  dusty  road  with  harmless  gold."  But 
that  almost  requires  four  eyes  —  two  to  see  the  dan- 
delion and  two  more  to  see  the  gold  —  the  two  eyes 
in  your  head,  and  the  two  in  your  imagination.  Do 
you  really  know  how  to  see  anything  ?  Most  persons 
have  eyes,  but  only  a  few  really  see.  This  is  because 
they  cannot  look  hard  and  steadily  at  anything.  The 


32  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

first  great  help  to  real  seeing  is  to  go  into  the  woods 
knowing  what  you  hope  to  see  —  seeing  it  in  your 
eye,  as  we  say,  before  you  see  it  in  the  out-of-doors. 
No  one  would  ever  see  a  tree-toad  on  a  mossy  tree  or 
a  whip-poor-will  among  the  fallen  leaves  who  did  not 
have  tree-toads  and  whip-poor-wills  in  mind.  Then, 
secondly,  look  at  the  thing  hard  until  you  see  in  it 
something  peculiar,  something  different  from  any- 
thing like  it  that  you  ever  saw  before.  Don't  dream 
in  the  woods;  don't  expect  the  flowers  to  tell  you 
their  names  or  the  wild  things  to  come  up  and  ask 
you  to  wait  while  they  perform  for  you0 


CHAPTER   V 


IF  YOU  HAD  WINGS 

IF  you  had  wings,  why  of  course  you  would 
wear   feathers   instead   of    clothes,    and    you 
might  be  a  crow !  And    then  of  course  you 
would  steal  corn,  and  run  the  risk  of  getting  three 
of  your  big  wing  feathers  shot  away. 

All   winter   long,  and    occasionally  during   this 
spring,  I  have  seen  one  of  ray  little  band  of  crows 

flying  about  with  a  big 
hole  in  his  wing,  —  at 
least  three  of  his  large 
wing  feathers  gone,  shot 
away  probably  last  sum- 


mer, —  which  causes  him  to  fly  with  a  list  or  limp, 
like  an  automobile  with  a  flattened  tire,  or  a  ship 
with  a  shifted  ballast. 

Now  for  nearly  a  year  that  crow  has  been  hobbling 
about  on  one  whole  and  one  half  wing,  trusting  to 


34  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

luck  to  escape  his  enemies,  until  he  can  get  three 
new  feathers  to  take  the  places  of  those  that  are 
missing.  "  Well,  why  does  n't  he  get  them  ?  "  you 
ask.  If  you  were  that  crow,  how  would  you  get  them  ? 
Can  a  crow,  by  taking  thought,  add  three  new  feath- 
ers to  his  wing? 

Certainly  not.  That  crow  must  wait  until  wing- 
feather  season  comes  again,  just  as  an  apple  tree 
must  wait  until  apple-growing  season  comes  to  hang 
its  boughs  with  luscious  fruit.  The  crow  has  nothing 
to  do  with  it.  His  wing  feathers  are  supplied  by  Na- 
ture once  a  year  (after  the  nesting-time),  and  if  a 
crow  loses  any  of  them,  even  if  right  after  the 
new  feathers  had  been  supplied,  that  crow  will  have 
to  wait  until  the  season  for  wing  feathers  comes 
around  once  more  —  if  indeed  he  can  wait  and  does 
not  fall  a  prey  to  hawk  or  owl  or  the  heavy  odds  of 
winter. 

But  Nature  is  not  going  to  be  hurried  on  that  ac< 
count,  nor  caused  to  change  one  jot  or  tittle  from 
her  wise  and  methodical  course.  The  Bible  says 
that  the  hairs  of  our  heads  are  numbered,  So  are 
the  feathers  on  a  crow's  body.  Nature  knows  just 
how  many  there  are  altogether ;  how  many  there 
are  of  each  sort  —  primaries,  secondaries,  tertials, 
greater  coverts,  middle  coverts,  lesser  coverts,  and 
scapulars — in  the  wing;  just  how  each  sort  is 
arranged;  just  when  each  sort  is  to  be  moulted  and 
renewed.  If  Master  Crow  does  not  take  care  of  his 


IF  YOU  HAD   WINGS  35 

clothes,  then  he  will  have  to  go  without  until  the 
time  fora  new  suit  comes;  for  Mother  Nature  won't 
patch  them  up  as  your  mother  patches  up  yours. 

But  now  this  is  what  I  want  you  to  notice  and 
think  about :  that  just  as  an  apple  falls  according 
to  a  great  law  of  Nature,  so  a  bird's  feathers  fall  ac- 
cording to  a  law  of  Nature.  The  moon  is  appointed 
for  seasons  ;  the  sun  knoweth  his  going  down ;  and 
so  light  and  insignificant  a  thing  as  a  bird's  feather 
not  only  is  appointed  to  grow  in  a  certain  place  at  a 
certain  time,  but  also  knoweth  its  falling  off. 

Nothing  could  look  more  haphazard,  certainly, 
than  the  way  a  hen's  feathers  seem  to  drop  off  at 
moulting  time.  The  most  forlorn,  undone,  abject 
creature  about  the  farm  is  the  half-moulted  hen. 
There  is  one  in  the  chicken-yard  now,  so  nearly 
naked  that  she  really  is  ashamed  of  herself,  and  so 
miserably  helpless  that  she  squats  in  a  corner  all 
night,  unable  to  reach  the  low  poles  of  the  roost.  It 
is  a  critical  experience  with  the  hen,  this  moulting 
of  her  feathers  ;  and  were  it  not  for  the  protection 
of  the  yard  it  would  be  a  fatal  experience,  so  easily 
could  she  be  captured.  Nature  seems  to  have  no 
hand  in  the  business  at  all ;  if  she  has,  then  what  a 
mess  she  is  making  of  it! 

But  pick  up  the  hen,  study  the  falling  of  the 
feathers  carefully,  and  lo!  here  is  law  and  order, 
every  feather  as  important  to  Nature  as  a  star,  every 
quill  as  a  planet,  and  the  old  white  hen  as  mightily 


36  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

looked  after  by  Nature  as  the  round  sphere  of  the 
universe  ! 

Once  a  year,  usually  after  the  nesting-season,  it 
seems  a  physical  necessity  for  most  birds  to  renew 
their  plumage. 

We  get  a  new  suit  (some  of  us)  because  our  old 
one  wears  out.  That  is  the  most  apparent  cause  for 
the  new  annual  suit  of  the  birds.  Yet  with  them, 
as  with  some  of  us,  the  feathers  go  out  of  fashion, 
and  then  the  change  of  feathers  is  a  mere  matter 
of  style,  it  seems. 

For  severe  and  methodical  as  Mother  Nature 
must  be  (and  what  mother  or  teacher  or  ruler,  who 
has  great  things  to  do  and  a  multitude  of  little  things 
to  attend  to,  must  not  be  severe  and  methodical?) 
—  severe,  I  say,  as  Mother  Nature  must  be  in  look- 
ing after  her  children's  clothes,  she  has  for  all  that 
a  real  motherly  heart,  it  seems. 

For  see  how  she  looks  after  their  wedding  gar- 
ments—  giving  to  most  of  the  birds  a  new  suit,  gay 
and  gorgeous,  especially  to  the  bridegrooms,  as  if 
fine  feathers  did  make  a  fine  bird !  Or  does  she  do 
all  of  this  to  meet  the  fancy  of  the  bride,  as  the 
scientists  tell  us?  Whether  so  or  not,  it  is  a  fact 
that  among  the  birds  it  is  the  bridegroom  who  is 
adorned  for  his  wife,  and  sometimes  the  fine  feathers 
come  by  a  special  moult  —  an  extra  suit  for  him  ! 

Take  Bobolink,  for  instance.  He  has  two  complete 
moults  a  year,  two  new  suits,  one  of  them  his  wedding 


IF   YOU  HAD  WINGS  37 

suit.  Now,  as  I  write,  I  hear  him  singing  over  the 
meadow  —  a  jet-black,  white,  and  cream-buff  lover, 
most  strikingly  adorned.  His  wife,  down  in  the  grass, 
looks  as  little  like  him  as  a  sparrow  looks  like  a  black- 
bird. But  after  the  breeding-season  he  will  moult 
again,  changing  color  so  completely  that  he  and  his 
wife  and  children  will  all  look  alike,  all  like  spar- 
rows, and  will  even  lose  their  names,  flying  south 
now  under  the  name  of  "reedbirds." 

Bobolink  passes  the  winter  in  Brazil ;  and  in  the 
spring,  just  before  the  long  northward  journey  be- 
gins, he  lays  aside  his  fall  traveling  clothes  and 
puts  on  his  gay  wedding  garments  and  starts  north 
for  his  bride.  But  you  would  hardly  know  he  was 
so  dressed,  to  look  at  him ;  for,  strangely  enough, 
he  is  not  black  and  white,  but  still  colored  like  a 
sparrow,  as  he  was  in  the  fall.  Apparently  he  is. 
Look  at  him  more  closely,  however,  and  you  will 
find  that  the  brownish-yellow  color  is  all  caused  by 
a  veil  of  fine  fringes  hanging  from  the  edges  of  the 
feathers.  The  bridegroom  wearing  the  wedding  veil? 
Yes  !  Underneath  is  the  black  and  white  and  cream- 
buff  suit.  He  starts  northward ;  and,  by  the  time 
he  reaches  Massachusetts,  the  fringe  veil  is  worn  off 
and  the  black  and  white  bobolink  appears.  Speci- 
mens taken  after  their  arrival  here  still  show  traces 
of  the  brownish-yellow  veil. 

Many  birds  do  not  have  this  early  spring  moult 
at  all ;  and  with  most  of  those  that  do,  the  great 


38  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

wing  feathers  are  not  then  renewed  as  are  bobolink's, 
but  only  at  the  annual  moult  after  the  nesting  is 
done.  The  great  feathers  of  the  wings  are,  as  you 
know,  the  most  important  feathers  a  bird  has;  and 
the  shedding  of  them  is  so  serious  a  matter  that 
Nature  has  come  to  make  the  change  according  to 
the  habits  and  needs  of  the  birds.  With  most  birds 
the  body  feathers  begin  to  go  first,  then  the  wing 
feathers,  and  last  those  of  the  tail.  But  the  shedding 
of  the  wing  feathers  is  a  very  slow  and  carefully 
regulated  process. 

In  the  wild  geese  and  other  water  birds  the  wing 
feathers  drop  out  with  the  feathers  of  the  body,  and 
go  so  nearly  together  that  the  birds  really  cannot 
fly.  On  land  you  could  catch  the  birds  with  your 
hands.  But  they  keep  near  or  on  the  water  and  thus 
escape,  though  times  have  been  when  it  was  neces- 
sary to  protect  them  at  this  season  by  special  laws ; 
for  bands  of  men  would  go  into  their  nesting- 
marshes  and  kill  them  with  clubs  by  hundreds ! 

The  shedding  of  the  feathers  brings  many  risks 
to  the  birds ;  but  Nature  leaves  none  of  her  children 
atterly  helpless.  The  geese  at  this  time  cannot  fly 
because  their  feathers  are  gone  ;  but  they  can  swim, 
and  so  getaway  from  most  of  their  natural  enemieSo 
On  the  other  hand,  the  hawks  that  hunt  by  wing,  and 
must  have  wings  always  in  good  feather,  or  else  perish, 
lose  their  feathers  so  slowly  that  they  never  feel  their 
loss.  It  takes  a  hawk  nearly  a  year  to  get  a  complete 


IF  YOU  HAD  WINGS  39 

change  of  wing  feathers,  one  or  two  dropping  out 
from  each  wing  at  a  time,  at  long  intervals  apart. 

Then  here  is  the  gosling,  that  goes  six  weeks  in 
down,  before  it  gets  its  first  feathers,  which  it  sheds 
within  a  few  weeks,  in  the  fall.  Whereas  the  young 
quail  is  born  with  quills  so  far  grown  that  it  is  able 
to  fly  almost  as  soon  as  it  is  hatched.  These  are  real 
mature  feathers ;  but  the  bird  is  young  and  soon 
outgrows  these  first  flight  feathers,  so  they  are 
quickly  lost  and  new  ones  come.  This  goes  on  till 
fall,  several  moults  occurring  the  first  summer  to 
meet  the  increasing  weight  of  the  little  quail's  grow- 
ing body. 

I  said  that  Nature  was  severe  and  methodical,  and 
so  she  is,  where  she  needs  to  be,  so  severe  that  you 
are  glad,  perhaps,  that  you  are  not  a  crow.  But  Na- 
ture, like  every  wise  mother,  is  severe  only  where 
she  needs  to  be.  A  crow's  wing  feathers  are  vastly 
important  to  him.  Let  him  then  take  care  of  them, 
for  they  are  the  best  feathers  made  and  are  put  in 
to  stay  a  year.  But  a  crow's  tail  feathers  are  not  so 
vastly  important  to  him  ;  he  could  get  on,  if,  like  the 
rabbit  in  the  old  song,  he  had  no  tail  at  all. 

In  most  birds  the  tail  is  a  kind  of  balance  or  steer- 
ing-gear, and  not  of  equal  importance  with  the  wings. 
Nature,  consequently,  seems  to  have  attached  less 
importance  to  the  feathers  of  the  tail.  They  are  not 
so  firmly  set,  nor  are  they  of  the  same  quality  or  kind ; 
for,  unlike  the  wing  feathers,  if  a  tail  feather  is  lost 


40  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

through  accident,  it  is  made  good,  no  matter  when. 
How  do  you  explain  that?  Do  you  think  I  believe 
that  old  story  of  the  birds  roosting  with  their  tails 
out,  so  that,  because  of  generations  of  lost  tails, 
those  feathers  now  grow  expecting  to  be  plucked 
by  some  enemy,  and  therefore  have  only  a  temporary 
hold? 

The  normal,  natural  way,  of  course,  is  to  replace 
a  lost  feather  with  a  new  one  as  soon  as  possible. 
But,  in  order  to  give  extra  strength  to  the  wing 
feathers,  Nature  has  found  it  necessary  to  check 
their  frequent  change  ;  and  so  complete  is  the  check 
that  the  annual  moult  is  required  to  replace  a  single 
one.  The  Japanese  have  discovered  the  secret  of  this 
check,  and  are  able  by  it  to  keep  certain  feathers 
in  the  tails  of  their  cocks  growing  until  they  reach 
the  enormous  length  of  ten  to  twelve  feet. 

My  crow,  it  seems,  lost  his  three  feathers  last  sum- 
mer just  after  his  annual  moult ;  the  three  broken 
shafts  he  carries  still  in  his  wing,  and  must  continue 
to  carry,  as  the  stars  must  continue  their  courses, 
until  those  three  feathers  have  rounded  out  their 
cycle  to  the  annual  moult.  The  universe  of  stars  and 
feathers  is  a  universe  of  law,  of  order,  and  of  reason. 


CHAPTER   VI 

A    CHAPTER    OF    THINGS    TO    DO    THIS    SPRING 

I  DO  not  know  where  to  begin  —  there  are  so 
many  interesting  things  to  do  this  spring !  But, 
while  we  ought  to  be  interested  in  all  of  the 
out-of-doors,  it  is  very  necessary  to  select  some  one 
field,  say,  the  birds  or  flowers,  for  special  study. 
That  would  help  us  to  decide  what  to  do  this  spring. 

I 

If  there  is  still  room  under  your  window,  or  on 
the  clothes-pole  in  your  yard,  or  in  a  neighboring 
tree,  nail  up  another  bird-house.  (Get  "Methods  of 
Attracting  Birds  "  by  Gilbert  H.  Trafton.)  If  the 
bird-house  is  on  a  pole  or  post,  invert  a  large  tin  pan 
over  the  end  of  the  post  and  nail  the  house  fast 
upon  it.  This  will  keep  cats  and  squirrels  from  dis- 
turbing the  birds.  If  the  bird-house  is  in  a  tree,  saw 
off  a  limb,  if  you  can  without  hurting  the  tree,  and 
do  the  same  there.  Cats  are  our  birds'  worst  enemies. 

II 

Cats  !  Begin  in  your  own  home  and  neighborhood 
a  campaign  against  the  cats,  to  reduce  their  number 
and  to  educate  their  owners  to  the  need  of  keeping 
them  well  fed  and  shut  up  in  the  house  from  early 


42  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

evening  until  after  the  early  morning ;  for  these  are 
the  cats'  natural  hunting  hours,  when  they  do  the 
greatest  harm  to  the  birds. 

This  does  not  mean  any  cruelty  to  the  cat  —  no 
stoning,  no  persecution.  The  cat  is  not  at  fault.  It  is 
the  keepers  of  the  cats  who  need  to  be  educated.  Out 
of  every  hundred  nests  in  my  neighborhood  the  cats 
of  two  farmhouses  destroy  ninety-five!  The  state 
must  come  to  the  rescue  of  the  birds  by  some  new 
rigid  law  reducing  the  number  of  cats. 

Ill 

Speaking  of  birds,  let  me  urge  you  to  begin  your 
watching  and  study  early  —  with  the  first  robins 
and  bluebirds  —  and  to  select  some  near-by  park  or 
wood-lot  or  meadow  to  which  you  can  go  frequently. 
There  is  a  good  deal  in  getting  intimately  acquainted 
with  a  locality,  so  that  you  know  its  trees  individ- 
ually, its  rocks,  walls,  fences,  the  very  qualities  of  its 
soil.  Therefore  you  want  a  small  area,  close  at  hand. 
Most  observers  make  the  mistake  of  roaming  first 
here,  then  there,  spending  their  time  and  observa- 
tion in  finding  their  way  around,  instead  of  upon 
the  birds  to  be  seen.  You  must  get  used  to  your 
paths  and  trees  before  you  can  see  the  birds  that  flit 
about  them. 

IV 

In  this  haunt  that  you  select  for  your  observation, 
you  must  study  not  only  the  birds  but  the  trees,  and 


THINGS   TO   DO   THIS   SPRING  43 

the  other  forms  of  life,  and  the  shape  of  the  ground 
(the  u  lay  "  of  the  land)  as  well,  so  as  to  know  all 
that  you  see.  In  a  letter  just  received  from  a  teacher, 
who  is  also  a  college  graduate,  occurs  this  strange 
description  :  "  My  window  faces  a  hill  on  which 
straggle  brown  houses  among  the  deep  green  of 
elms  or  oaks  or  maples,  I  don't  know  which."  Per- 
haps the  hill  is  far  away  ;  but  I  suspect  that  the 
writer,  knowing  my  love  for  the  out-of-doors,  wanted 
to  give  me  a  vivid  picture,  but,  not  knowing  one  tree 
from  another,  put  them  all  in  so  I  could  make  my 
own  choice  ! 

Learn  your  common  trees,  common  flowers,  com- 
mon bushes,  common  animals,  along  with  the  birds. 


Plant  a  garden,  if  only  a  pot  of  portulacas,  and 
care  for  it,  and  watch  it  grow !  Learn  to  dig  in  the 
soil  and  to  love  it.  It  is  amazing  how  much  and  how 
many  things  you  can  grow  in  a  box  on  the  window- 
sill,  or  in  a  corner  of  the  dooryard.  There  are  plants 
for  the  sun  and  plants  for  the  shade,  plants  for  the 
wall,  plants  for  the  very  cellar  of  your  house.  Get 
you  a  bit  of  earth  and  plant  it,  no  matter  how  busy 
you  are  with  other  things  this  spring. 

VI 

There  are  four  excursions  that  you  should  make 
this  spring :  one  to  a  small  pond  in  the  woods ;  one 


44  THE  SPRING   OF  THE  YEAR 

to  a  deep,  wild  swamp;  one  to  a  wide  salt  marsh  or 
fresh-water  meadow;  and  one  to  the  seashore  — 
to  a  wild  rocky  or  sandy  shore  uninhabited  by 
man. 

There  are  particular  birds  and  animals  as  well  as 
plants  and  flowers  that  dwell  only  in  these  haunts; 
besides,  you  will  get  a  sight  of  four  distinct  kinds  of 
landscape,  four  deep  impressions  of  the  face  of 
nature  that  are  altogether  as  good  to  have  as  the 
sight  of  four  flowers  or  birds. 

VII 

Make  a  calendar  of  your  spring  (read  "  Nature's 
Diary"  by  Francis  H.  Allen)  —  when  and  where  you 
find  your  first  bluebird,  robin,  oriole,  etc. ;  when  and 
where  you  find  your  first  hepatica,  arbutus,  saxi- 
frage, etc.;  and,  as  the  season  goes  on,  when  and 
where  the  doings  of  the  various  wild  things  take 
place. 

VIII 

Boy  or  girl,  you  should  go  fishing  —  down  to  the 
pond  or  the  river  where  you  go  to  watch  the  birds. 
Suppose  you  do  not  catch  any  fish.  That  doesn't 
matter;  for  you  have  gone  out  to  the  pond  with  a 
pole  in  your  hands  (a  pole  is  a  real  thing) ;  you  have 
gone  with  the  hope  (hope  is  a  real  thing)  of  catch- 
ing  fish  (fish  are  real  things);  and  even  if  you 
catch  no  fish,  you  will  be  sure,  as  you  wait  for  the 


THINGS   TO   DO   THIS   SPRING 


45 


fish  to  bite,  to  hear  a  belted  kingfisher,  or  see  a 
painted  turtle,  or  catch  the  breath  of  the  sweet 
leaf-buds  and  clustered  catkins  opening  around  the 
wooded  pond.  It  is  a  very  good  thing  for  the  young 
naturalist  to  learn  to  sit  still.  A  fish-pole  is  a  great 
help  in  learning  that  necessary  lesson. 

IX 

One  of  the  most  interesting  things  you  can  do  for 
special  study  is  to  collect  some  frogs'  eggs  from  the 
pond  and  watch  them  grow  £  into  tadpoles 
and  on  into  frogs.  There  are  jj  glass  vessels 


made  particularly 
-y~  for  such  study  (an 
ordinary  glass  jar  will 
do).  If  you  can  afford  a 
^a  //  small  glass  aquarium,  get  one 
and  with  a  few  green  water- 
plants  put  in  a  few  minnows,  a 
snail  or  two,  a  young  turtle,  water-beetles,  and 
frogs'  eggs,  and  watch  them  grow. 


46  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

X 

You  should  get  up  by  half  past  three  o'clock  (at 
the  earliest  streak  of  dawn)  and  go  out  into  the  new 
morning  with  the  birds !  You  will  hardly  recognize 
the  world  as  that  in  which  your  humdrum  days 
(there  are  no  such  days,  really)  are  spent!  All  is 
fresh,  all  is  new,  and  the  bird-chorus!  "Is  it  possi- 
ble," you  will  exclaim,  " that  this  can  be  the  earth?" 

Early  morning  and  toward  sunset  are  the  best 
times  of  the  day  for  bird-study.  But  if  there  was 
not  a  bird,  there  would  be  the  sunrise  and  the  sunset 
—  the  wonder  of  the  waking,  the  peace  of  the  clos- 
ing, day. 

XI 

I  am  not  going  to  tell  you  that  you  should  make 
a  collection  of  beetles  or  butterflies  (you  should  not 


make  a  collection  of  birds  or  birds'  eggs)  or  of 
pressed  flowers  or  of  minerals  or  of  arrow-heads  or 
of — anything.  Because,  while  such  a  collection  is 
of  great  interest  and  of  real  value  in  teaching  you 
names  and  things,  still  there  are  better  ways  of  study- 
ing living  nature.  For  instance,  I  had  rather  have 


THINGS  TO   DO  THIS   SPRING  47 

you  tame  a  hop-toad,  feed  him,  watch  him  evening 
after  evening  all  summer,  than  make  any  sort  of 
dead  or  dried  or  pressed  collection  of  anything.  Live 
things  are  better  than  those  things  dead.  Better 
know  one  live  toad  under  your  doorstep  than  bottle 
up  in  alcohol  all  the  reptiles  of  your  state. 

XII 

Finally  you  should  remember  that  kindliness  and 
patience  and  close  watching  are  the  keys  to  the  out- 
of-doors;  that  only  sympathy  and  gentleness  and 
quiet  are  welcome  in  the  fields  and  woods.  What, 
then,  ought  I  to  say  that  you  should  do  finally? 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    PALACE    IN    THE    PIG-PEN 

YOU  have  taken   a  handful   of  my  wooded 
acres/'  says  Nature  to  me,  "  and  if  you  have 
not    improved    them,    you    at    least    have 
changed  them  greatly.  But  they  are  mine  still.  Be 
friendly  now,  go  softly,  and  you  shall  have  them  all 
—  and  I  shall  have  them  all,  too.  We  will  share  them 
together." 

And  we  do.  Every  part  of  the  fourteen  acres  is 
mine,  yielding  some  kind  of  food  or  fuel  or  shelter. 
And  every  foot,  yes,  every  foot,  is  Nature's ;  as  entirely 
hers  as  when  the  thick  primeval  forest  stood  here, 
The  apple  trees  are  hers  as  much  as  mine,  and  she 
has  ten  different  bird  families  that  I  know  of,  living 
in  them  this  spring.  A  pair  of  crows  and  a  pair  of 
red-tailed  hawks  are  nesting  in  the  wood-lot;  there 
are  at  least  three  families  of  chipmunks  in  as  many 
of  my  stone-piles ;  a  fine  old  tree-toad  sleeps  on  the 
porch  under  the  climbing  rose;  a  hornet's  nest  hangs 
in  a  corner  of  the  eaves;  a  small  colony  of  swifts 
thunder  in  the  chimney  ;  swallows  twitter  in  the  hay- 
loft ;  a  chipmunk  and  a  half-tame  gray  squirrel  feed 
in  the  barn ;  and  —  to  bring  an  end  to  this  bare  be- 
ginning—  under  the  roof  of  the  pig-pen  dwell  a 
pair  of  phoebes. 


THE   PALACE   IN  THE   PIG-PEN  49 

To  make  a  bird-house  of  a  pig-pen,  to  divide  it 
between  the  pig  and  the  bird  —  this  is  as  far  as  Na- 
ture can  go,  and  this  is  certainly  enough  to  redeem 
the  whole  farm.  For  she  has  not  sent  an  outcast  or 
a  scavenger  to  dwell  in  the  pen,  but  a  bird  of  char- 
acter, however  much  he  may  lack  in  song  or  color. 
Phoebe  does  not  make  up  well  in  a  picture;  neither 
does  he  perform  well  as  a  singer;  there  is  little  to 
him,  in  fact,  but  personality — personality  of  a  kind 
and  (may  I  say?)  quantity,  sufficient  to  make  the 
pig-pen  a  decent  and  respectable  neighborhood. 

Phoebe  is  altogether  more  than  his  surroundings. 
Every  time  I  go  to  feed  the  pig,  he  lights  upon  a 
post  near  by  and  says  to  me,  "  It 's  what  you  are  ! 
Not  what  you  do,  but  how  you  do  it !  "  —  with  a 
launch  into  the  air,  a  whirl,  an  unerring  snap  at 
a  cabbage  butterfly,  and  an  easy  drop  to  the  post 
again,  by  way  of  illustration.  u  Not  where  you  live, 
but  how  you  live  there;  not  the  feathers  you  wear, 
but  how  you  wear  them  —  it  is  what  you  are  that 
counts!" 

There  is  a  difference  between  being  a  "  character" 
and  having  one.  My  phcebe  "lives  over  the  pig," 
but  I  cannot  feel  familiar  with  a  bird  of  his  air  and 
carriage,  who  faces  the  world  so  squarely,  who  settles 
upon  a  stake  as  if  he  owned  it,  who  lives  a  prince 
in  my  pig-pen. 

Look  at  him !  How  alert,  able,  free !  Notice  the 
limber  drop  of  his  tail,  the  ready  energy  it  suggests. 


50  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

By  that  one  sign  you  would  know  the  bird  had  force, 
He  is  afraid  of  nothing,  not  even  the  cold;  and  he 
migrates  only  because  he  is  a  fly-catcher,  and  is 
thus  compelled  to.  The  earliest  spring  day,  however, 
that  you  find  the  flies  buzzing  in  the  sun,  look  for 
phcebe.  He  is  back,  coming  alone  and  long  before 
it  is  safe.  He  was  one  of  the  first  of  my  birds  to 
return  this  spring. 

And  it  was  a  fearful  spring,  this  of  which  I  am  tell- 
ing you.  How  Phcebe  managed  to  exist  those  miser- 
able March  days  is  a  mystery.  He  came  directly  to 
the  pen  as  he  had  come  the  year  before,  and  his 
presence  in  that  bleakest  of  Marches  gave  the 
weather  its  only  touch  of  spring. 

The  same  force  and  promptness  are  manifest  in 
the  domestic  affairs  of  the  bird.  One  of  the  first  to 
arrive  this  spring,  he  was  the  first  to  build  and  bring 
off  a  brood —  or,  perhaps,  she  was.  And  the  size  of 
the  brood — of  the  broods,  for  there  was  a  second, 
and  a  third ! 

Phcebe  appeared  without  his  mate,  and  for  nearly 
three  weeks  he  hunted  in  the  vicinity  of  the  pen, 
calling  the  day  long,  and,  toward  the  end  of  the 
second  week,  occasionally  soaring  into  the  air,  flut- 
tering, and  pouring  forth  a  small,  ecstatic  song  that 
seemed  fairly  forced  from  him. 

These  aerial  bursts  meant  just  one  thing:  she  was 
coming,  was  coming  soon!  Was  she  coming  or  was 
he  getting  ready  to  go  for  her?  Here  he  had  been 


THE  PALACE   IN  THE   PIG-PEN  51 

for  nearly  three  weeks,  his  house-lot  chosen,  his  mind 
at  rest,  his  heart  beating  faster  with  every  sunrise. 
It  was  as  plain  as  day  that  he  knew  —  was  certain  — 
just  how  and  just  when  something  lovely  was  going 
to  happen.  I  wished  I  knew.  I  was  half  in  love  with 
her  myself;  and  I,  too,  watched  for  her. 

On  the  evening  of  April  14th,  he  was  alone  as  usual. 
The  next  morning  a  pair  of  phoebes  flitted  in  and 
out  of  the  windows  of  the  pen.  Here  she  was.  Will 
some  one  tell  me  all  about  it  ?  Had  she  just  come 
along  and  fallen  instantly  in  love  with  him  and  his  fine 
pig-pen?  It  is  pretty  evident  that  he  nested  here 
last  year.  Was  she,  then,  his  old  mate?  Did  they 
keep  together  all  through  the  autumn  and  winter? 
If  so,  then  why  not  together  all  the  way  back  from 
Florida  to  Massachusetts? 

Here  is  a  pretty  story.  But  who  will  tell  it  to 
me? 

For  several  days  after  she  came,  the  weather  con- 
tinued raw  and  wet,  so  that  nest-building  was  greatly 
delayed.  The  scar  of  an  old,  last  year's  nest  still 
showed  on  a  stringer,  and  I  wondered  if  they  had 
decided  on  this  or  some  other  site  for  the  new  nest. 
They  had  not  made  up  their  minds,  for  when  they 
did  start  it  was  to  make  three  beginnings  in  as  many 
places. 

Then  I  offered  a  suggestion.  Out  of  a  bit  of  stick, 
branching  at  right  angles,  I  made  a  little  bracket 
and  tacked  it  up  on  one  of  the  stringers.  It  ap- 


52  THE   SPRING  OF  THE   YEAR 

pealed  to  them  at  once,  and  from  that  moment  the 
building  went  steadily  on. 

Saddled  upon  this  bracket,  and  well  mortared  to 
the  stringer,  the  nest,  when  finished,  was  as  safe 
as  a  castle.  And  how  perfect  a  thing  it  was  !  Few 
nests,  indeed,  combine  the  solidity,  the  softness,  and 
the  exquisite  inside  curve  of  Phcebe's. 

In  placing  the  bracket,  I  had  carelessly  nailed  it 
under  one  of  the  cracks  in  the  loose  board  roof.  The 
nest  was  receiving  its  first  linings  when  there  came 
a  long,  hard  rain  that  beat  through  the  crack  and 
soaked  the  little  cradle.  This  was  serious,  for  a  great 
deal  of  mud  had  been  worked  into  the  thick  founda- 
tion, and  here,  in  the  constant  shade,  the  dampness 
would  be  long  in  drying  out. 

The  builders  saw  the  mistake,  too,  and  with  their 
great  good  sense  immediately  began  to  remedy  it. 
They  built  the  bottom  up  thicker,  carried  the  walls 
over  on  a  slant  that  brought  the  outermost  point 
within  the  line  of  the  crack,  then  raised  them  until 
the  cup  was  as  round-rimmed  and  hollow  as  the 
mould  of  Mrs.  Phcebe's  breast  could  make  it. 

The  outside  of  the  nest,  its  base,  is  broad  and 
rough  and  shapeless  enough ;  but  nothing  could  be 
softer  and  lovelier  than  the  inside,  the  cradle,  and 
nothing  drier,  for  the  slanting  walls  of  the  nest  shed 
every  drop  from  the  leafy  crack  above. 

Wet  weather  followed  the  heavy  rain  until  long 
after  the  nest  was  finished.  The  whole  structure  was 


THE   PALACE   IN  THE   PIG-PEN  53 

as  damp  and  cold  as  a  newly  plastered  house.  It  felt 
wet  to  my  touch.  Yet  I  noticed  that  the  birds  were 
already  brooding.  Every  night  and  often  during  the 
day  I  would  see  one  of  them  in  the  nest  —  so  deep 
in,  that  only  a  head  or  a  tail  showed  over  the  round 
rim. 

After  several  days  I  looked  to  see  the  eggs,  but 
to  my  surprise  found  the  nest  empty.  It  had  been 
robbed,  I  thought,  yet  by  what  creature  I  could  not 
imagine.  Then  down  cuddled  one  of  the  birds  again 
— and  I  understood.  Instead  of  wet  and  cold,  the 
nest  to-day  was  warm  to  my  hand,  and  dry  almost 
to  the  bottom.  It  had  changed  color,  too,  all  the 
upper  part  having  turned  a  soft  silver-gray.  She 
(I  am  sure  it  was  she)  had  not  been  brooding  her 
eggs  at  all ;  she  had  been  brooding  her  mother's 
thought  of  them ;  and  for  them  had  been  nestling 
here  these  days  and  nights,  drying  and  warming 
their  damp  cradle  with  the  fire  of  her  life  and  love. 

In  due  time  the  eggs  came,  —  five  of  them,  white, 
spotless,  and  shapely.  While  the  little  phcebe  hen 
was  hatching  them,  I  gave  my  attention  further  to 
the  cock. 

Our  intimate  friendship  revealed  a  most  pleas- 
ing nature  in  phcebe.  Perhaps  such  close  and  con- 
tinued association  would  show  like  qualities  in  every 
bird,  even  in  the  kingbird ;  but  I  fear  only  a  woman, 
like  Mrs.  Olive  Thome  Miller,  could  find  them  in  him. 
Not  much  can  be  said  of  this  flycatcher  family,  ex- 


54  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

cept  that  it  is  useful  —  a  kind  of  virtue  that  gets  its 
chief  reward  in  heaven.  I  am  acquainted  with  only 
four  of  the  other  nine  Eastern  members,  —  crested 
flycatcher,  kingbird,  wood  pewee,  and  chebec,  —  and 
each  of  these  has  some  redeeming  attribute  besides 
the  habit  of  catching  flies. 

They  are  all  good  nest-builders,  good  parents,  and 
brave,  independent  birds  ;  but  aside  from  phrebe  and 
pewee  —  the  latter  in  his  small  way  the  sweetest 
voice  of  the  oak  woods  —  the  whole  family  is  an  odd 
lot,  cross-grained,  cross-looking,  and  about  as  musical 
as  a  family  of  ducks.  A  duck  seems  to  know  that 
he  cannot  sing.  A  flycatcher  knows  nothing  of  his 
shortcomings.  He  believes  he  can  sing,  and  in  time 
he  will  prove  it.  If  desire  and  effort  count  for  any- 
thing, he  certainly  must  prove  it  in  time.  How  long 
the  family  has  already  been  training,  no  one  knows. 
Everybody  knows,  however,  the  success  each  fly- 
catcher of  them  has  thus  far  attained.  It  would 
make  a  good  minstrel  show,  doubtless,  if  the  family 
would  appear  together.  In  chorus,  surely,  they  would 
be  far  from  a  tuneful  choir.  Yet  individually,  in 
the  wide  universal  chorus  of  the  out-of-doors,  how 
much  we  should  miss  the  kingbird's  metallic  twitter 
and  the  chebec's  insistent  call ! 

There  was  little  excitement  for  phoabe  during  this 
period  of  incubation.  He  hunted  in  the  neighborhood 
and  occasionally  called  to  his  mate,  contented  enough 
perhaps,  but  certainly  sometimes  appearing  tired. 


PHCEBE  AND  HER  YOUNG 


56  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

One  rainy  day  he  sat  in  the  pig-pen  window  looking 
out  at  the  gray,  wet  world.  He  was  humped  and 
silent  and  meditative,  his  whole  attitude  speaking 
the  extreme  length  of  his  day,  the  monotony  of  the 
drip,  drip,  drip  from  the  eaves,  and  the  sitting,  the 
ceaseless  sitting,  of  his  brooding  wife.  He  might 
have  hastened  the  time  by  catching  a  few  flies  for 
her  or  by  taking  her  place  on  the  nest ;  but  I  never 
saw  him  do  it. 

Things  were  livelier  when  the  eggs  hatched,  for 
it  required  a  good  many  flies  a  day  to  keep  the  five 
young  ones  growing.  And  how  they  grew!  Like 
bread  sponge  in  a  pan,  they  began  to  rise,  pushing 
the  mother  up  so  that  she  was  forced  to  stand  over 
them ;  then  pushing  her  out  until  she  could  cling 
only  to  the  side  of  the  nest  at  night;  then  pushing 
her  off  altogether.  By  this  time  they  were  hanging 
to  the  outside  themselves,  covering  the  nest  from 
sight  almost,  until  finally  they  spilled  off  upon  their 
wings. 

Out  of  the  nest  upon  the  air !  Out  of  the  pen  and 
into  a  sweet,  wide  world  of  green  and  blue  and  of 
golden  light !  I  saw  one  of  the  broods  take  this  first 
flight,  and  it  was  thrilling. 

The  nest  was  placed  back  from  the  window  and 
below  it,  so  that  in  leaving  the  nest  the  young  would 
have  to  drop,  then  turn  and  fly  up  to  get  out.  Below 
was  the  pig. 

As  they  grew,  I  began  to  fear  that  they  might  try 


THE   PALACE   IN  THE   PIG-PEN  57 

their  wings  before  this  feat  could  be  accomplished, 
and  so  fall  to  the  pig  below.  But  Nature,  in  this  case, 
was  careful  of  her  pearls.  Day  after  day  they  clung 
to  the  nest,  even  after  they  might  have  flown ;  and 
when  they  did  go,  it  was  with  a  sure  and  long  flight 
that  carried  them  out  and  away  to  the  tops  of  the 
neighboring  trees. 

They  left  the  nest  one  at  a  time  and  were  met  in 
the  air  by  their  mother,  who,  darting  to  them,  calling 
loudly,  and,  whirling  about  them,  helped  them  as 
high  and  as  far  away  as  they  could  go. 

I  wish  the  simple  record  of  these  family  affairs 
could  be  closed  without  one  tragic  entry.  But  that 
can  rarely  be  of  any  family.  Seven  days  after  the 
first  brood  were  awing,  I  found  the  new  eggs  in  the 
nest.  Soon  after  that  the  male  bird  disappeared. 
The  second  brood  had  now  been  out  a  week,  and  in 
all  that  time  no  sight  or  sound  was  had  of  the  father. 

What  happened?  Was  he  killed?  Caught  by  a 
cat  or  a  hawk  ?  It  is  possible ;  and  this  is  an  easy  and 
kindly  way  to  think  of  him.  It  is  not  impossible  that 
he  may  have  remained  as  leader  and  protector  to  the 
first  brood ;  or  (perish  the  thought !)  might  he  have 
grown  weary  at  sight  of  the  second  lot  of  five 
eggs,  of  the  long  days  and  the  neglect  that  they 
meant  for  him,  and  out  of  jealousy  and  fickleness 
wickedly  deserted? 

I  hope  it  was  death,  a  stainless,  even  ignominious 
death  by  one  of  my  neighbor's  many  cats. 


58  THE  SPRING   OF  THE   YEAR 

Death  or  desertion,  it  involved  a  second  tragedy. 
Five  such  young  ones  at  this  time  were  too  many 
for  the  mother.  She  fought  nohly  ;  no  mother  could 
have  done  more.  All  five  were  brought  within  a  few 
days  of  flight;  then,  one  day,  I  saw  a  little  wing 
hanging  listlessly  over  the  side  of  the  nest.  I  went 
closer.  One  had  died.  It  had  starved  to  death.  There 
were  none  of  the  parasites  in  the  nest  that  often  kill 
whole  broods.  It  was  a  plain  case  of  sacrifice,  — 
by  the  mother,  perhaps ;  by  the  other  young,  maybe 
—  one  for  the  other  four. 

But  she  did  well.  Nine  such  young  birds  to  her 
credit  since  April.  Who  shall  measure  her  actual  use 
to  the  world  ?  How  does  she  compare  in  value  with 
the  pig  ?  Weeks  later  I  saw  several  of  her  brood 
along  the  meadow  fence  hawking  for  flies.  They 
were  not  far  from  my  cabbage-patch. 

I  hope  a  pair  of  them  will  return  to  me  next 
spring  and  that  they  will  come  early.  Any  bird  that 
deigns  to  dwell  under  roof  of  mine  commands  my 
friendship.  But  no  other  bird  takes  Phoebe's  place 
in  my  affections ;  there  is  so  much  in  him  to  like, 
and  he  speaks  for  so  much  of  the  friendship  of 
nature. 

"  Humble  and  inoffensive  bird "  he  has  been 
called  by  one  of  our  leading  ornithologies — because 
he  comes  to  my  pig-pen !  Inoffensive !  this  bird 
with  the  cabbage  butterfly  in  his  beak !  The  faint 
and  damning  praise !  And  humble  ?  There  is  not 


THE   PALACE   IN  THE  PIG-PEN  59 

a  humble  feather  on  his  body.  Humble  to  those  who 
see  the  pen  and  not  the  bird.  But  to  me  —  why,  the 
bird  has  made  a  palace  of  my  pig-pen  ! 

The  very  pig  seems  less  a  pig  because  of  this  ex- 
quisite association  ;  and  the  lowly  work  of  feeding 
the  creature  has  been  turned  for  me  by  Phoebe  into 
a  poetic  course  in  bird  study. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

IS    IT    A    LIFE    OF    FEAR  ? 

THERE  was  a  swish  of  wings,  a  flash  of  gray, 
a  cry  of  pain ;  a  squawking,  cowering,  scat- 
tering flock  of  hens  ;  a  weakly  fluttering  pul- 
let; and  yonder,  swinging  upward  into  the  sky,  a 
marsh  hawk,  buoyant  and  gleaming  silvery  in  the 
sun.  Over  the  trees  he  beat,  circled  once,  and  disap- 
peared. 

The  hens  were  still  flapping  for  safety  in  a 
dozen  directions,  but  the  gray  harrier  had  gone.  A 
bolt  of  lightning  could  hardly  have  dropped  so  unan- 
nounced, could  hardly  have  vanished  so  completely, 
could  scarcely  have  killed  so  quickly.  I  ran  to  the 
pullet,  but  found  her  dead.  The  harrier's  stroke,  de- 
livered with  fearful  velocity,  had  laid  head  and  neck 
open  as  with  a  keen  knife.  Yet  a  little  slower  and 
he  would  have  missed,  for  the  pullet  warded  off  the 
other  claw  with  her  wing.  The  gripping  talons 
slipped  off  the  long  quills,  and  the  hawk  swept  on 
without  his  quarry.  He  dared  not  come  back  for  it 
at  my  feet ;  so,  with  a  single  turn  above  the  woods 
he  was  gone. 

The  scurrying  hens  stopped  to  look  about  them. 


IS   IT  A   LIFE  OF   FEAR?  61 

There  was  nothing  in  the  sky  to  see.  They  stood 
still  and  silent  a  moment.  The  rooster  chucked. 
Then  one  by  one  they  turned  back  into  the  open 
pasture.  A  huddled  group  under  the  hen-yard  fence 
broke  up  and  came  out  with  the  others.  Death  had 
flashed  among  them,  but  had  missed  them.  Fear  had 
come,  but  it  had  gone.  Within  two  minutes  from 
the  fall  of  the  stroke,  every  hen  in  the  flock  was  in- 
tent at  her  scratching,  or  as  intently  chasing  the 
gray  grasshoppers  over  the  pasture. 

Yet,  as  the  flock  scratched,  the  high-stepping  cock 
would  frequently  cast  up  his  eye  toward  the  tree- 
tops  ;  would  sound  his  alarum  at  the  flight  of  a  robin  ; 
and  if  a  crow  came  over,  he  would  shout  and  dodge 
and  start  to  run.  But  instantly  the  shadow  would 
pass,  and  instantly  Chanticleer— 

"  He  looketh  as  it  were  a  grym  leoun, 
And  on  hise  toos  he  rometh  up  and  doun; 

Thus  roial  as  a  prince  is  in  an  halle." 

He  wasn't  afraid.  Cautious,  alert,  watchful  he  wasr 
but  not  afraid.  No  shadow  of  dread  lay  dark  and 
ominous  across  the  sunshine  of  his  pasture.  Shadows 
came  —  like  a  flash  ;  and  like  a  flash  they  vanished 
away. 

We  cannot  go  far  into  the  fields  without  sighting 
the  hawk  and  the  snake,  whose  other  names  are 
Death.  In  one  form  or  another  Death  moves  every- 
where, down  every  wood-path  and  pasture-lane^ 


62 


THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 


through  the  black  waters  of  the  mill-pond,  out  under 
the  open  of  the  April  sky,  night  and  day,  and  every 
day^  the  four  seasons  through. 

I  have  seen  the  still  surface  of  a  pond  break  sud- 
denly with  a  swirl,  and  flash  a  hundred  flecks  of 
silver  into  the  light,  as  the  minnows  leap  from  the 


jaws  of  the  terrible  pike.  Then  a  loud  rattle,  a  streak 
of  blue,  a  splash  at  the  centre  of  the  swirl,  and  I 
see  the  pike  twisting  and  bending  in  the  beak  of 
the  terrible  kingfisher.  The  killer  is  killed.  But  at  the 
mouth  of  the  nest-hole  in  the  steep  sand-bank,  sway- 
ing from  a  root  in  the  edge  of  the  turf  above,  hangs 
the  terrible  black  snake,  the  third  killer  ;  and  the 
belted  kingfisher,  dropping  the  pike,  darts  off  with 
a  startled  cry. 

I  have  been  afield  at  times  when  one  tragedy  has 
followed  another  in  such  rapid  and  continuous  suc- 
cession as  to  put  a  whole  shining,  singing,  blossom- 
ing springtime  under  a  pall.  Everything  has  seemed 
to  cower,  skulk,  and  hide,  to  run  as  if  pursued. 
There  was  no  peace,  no  stirring  of  small  life,  n6t 
even  in  the  quiet  of  the  deep  pines ;  for  here  a  hawk 
would  be  nesting,  or  a  snake  would  be  sleeping,  or 


IS   IT   A  LIFE   OF  FEAR?  63 

I  would  hear  the  passing  of  a  fox,  see  perhaps  his 
keen,  hungry  face  an  instant  as  he  halted,  winding 
me. 

There  is  struggle,  and  pain,  and  death  in  the 
woods,  and  there  is  fear  also,  but  the  fear  does  not 
last  long ;  it  does  not  haunt  and  follow  and  terrify; 
it  has  no  being,  no  shape,  no  lair.  The  shadow  of 
the  swiftest  scudding  cloud  is  not  so  fleeting  as  this 
Fear-shadow  in  the  woods.  The  lowest  of  the  animals 
seem  capable  of  feeling  fear ;  yet  the  very  highest 
of  them  seem  incapable  of  dreading  it.  For  them 
Fear  is  not  of  the  imagination,  but  of  the  sight,  and 
of  the  passing  moment. 

"  The  present  only  toucheth  thee  !  " 

It  does  more,  it  throngs  him  —  our  little  fellow 
mortal  of  the  stubble-field.  Into  the  present  is  lived 
the  whole  of  his  life  —  he  remembers  none  of  it ;  he 
anticipates  none  of  it.  And  the  whole  of  this  life  is 
action ;  and  the  whole  of  this  action  is  joy.  The  mo- 
ments of  fear  in  an  animal's  life  are  few  and  vanish- 
ing. Action  and  joy  are  constant,  the  joint  laws  of 
all  animal  life,  of  all  nature — of  the  shining  stars 
that  sing  together,  of  the  little  mice  that  squeak  to- 
gether, of  the  bitter  northeast  storms  that  roar  across 
the  wintry  fields. 

I  have  had  more  than  one  hunter  grip  me  excitedly, 
and  with  almost  a  command  bid  me  hear  the  music 
of  the  baying  pack.  There  are  hollow  halls  in  the 


64  THE   SPRING   OF  THE  YEAR 

swamps  that  lie  to  the  east  and  north  and  west  of 
me,  that  catch  up  the  cry  of  the  foxhounds,  that 
blend  it,  mellow  it,  round  it,  and  roll  it,  rising  and 
falling  over  the  meadows  in  great  globes  of  sound, 
as  pure  and  sweet  as  the  pearly  notes  of  the  veery 
rolling  round  their  silver  basin  in  the  summer  dusk. 
What  music  it  is  when  the  pack  breaks  into  the 
open  on  the  warm  trail !  A  chorus  then  of  tongues 
singing  the  ecstasy  of  pursuit !  My  blood  leaps ;  the 
natural  primitive  wild  thing  of  muscle  and  nerve  and 
instinct  within  me  slips  its  leash,  and  on  past  with 
the  pack  I  drive,  the  scent  of  the  trail  single  and 
sweet  in  my  nostrils,  a  very  fire  in  my  blood,  motion, 
motion,  motion  in  my  bounding  muscles,  and  in  my 
being  a  mighty  music,  spheric  and  immortal ! 

"  The  fair  music  that  all  creatures  made 
To  their  great  Lord,  whose  love  their  motions  swayed  .  .  ." 

But  what  about  the  fox,  loping  wearily  on  ahead  ? 
What  part  has  he  in  the  chorus?  No  part,  perhaps, 
unless  we  grimly  call  him  its  conductor.  But  the 
point  is  the  chomis  —  that  it  never  ceases,  the  hounds 
at  this  moment,  not  the  fox,  in  the  leading  role. 

"But  the  chorus  ceases  for  me,"  you  say.  "My 
heart  is  with  the  poor  fox."  So  is  mine,  and  mine  is 
with  the  dogs  too.  No,  don't  say  "  Poor  little  fox  !  " 
For  many  a  night  I  have  bayed  with  the  pack,  and 
as  often  —  of tener,  I  think  —  I  have  loped  and  dodged 
and  doubled  with  the  fox,  pitting  limb  against  limb, 
lung  against  lung,  wit  against  wit,  and  always  escap- 


IS  IT  A  LIFE   OF  FEAR?  65 

ing.  More  than  once,  in  the  warm  moonlight,  I,  the 
fox,  have  led  them  on  and  on,  spurring  their  lagging 
muscles  with  a  sight  of  my  brush,  on  and  on,  through 
the  moonlit  night,  through  the  day,  on  into  the  moon 
again,  and  on  until  —  only  the  stir  of  my  own  foot- 
steps has  followed  me.  Then,  doubling  once  more, 
creeping  back  a  little  upon  my  track,  I  have  looked 
at  my  pursuers,  silent  and  stiff  upon  the  trail,  and, 
ere  the  echo  of  their  cry  has  died  away,  I  have 
caught  up  the  chorus  and  carried  it  single-throated 
through  the  wheeling,  singing  spheres. 

There  is  more  of  fact  than  of  fancy  to  this.  That 
a  fox  ever  purposely  led  a  dog  to  run  to  death  would 
be  hard  to  prove ;  but  that  the  dogs  run  themselves 
to  death  in  a  single  extended  chase  after  a  single  fox 
is  a  common  occurrence  here  in  the  woods  about  the 
farm.  Occasionally  the  fox  may  be  overtaken  by  the 
hounds ;  seldom,  however,  except  in  the  case  of  a 
very  young  one  or  of  one  unacquainted  with  the 
lay  of  the  land,  a  stranger  that  may  have  been 
driven  into  the  rough  country  here. 

I  have  been  both  fox  and  hound ;  I  have  run  the 
race  too  often  not  to  know  that  both  enjoy  it  at 
times,  fox  as  much  as  hound.  Some  weeks  ago  the 
dogs  carried  a  young  fox  around  and  around  the 
farm,  hunting  him  here,  there,  everywhere,  as  if  in 
a  game  of  hide-and-seek.  An  old  fox  would  have  led 
the  dogs  on  a  long  coursing  run  across  the  range. 
But  the  young  fox,  after  the  dogs  were  caught  and 


66 


THE    SPRING  OF  THE   YEAR 


taken  off  the  trail,  soon  sauntered  up  through  the 
mowing-field  behind  the  barn,  came  out  upon  the 
bare  knoll  near  the  house,  and  sat  there  in  the  moon- 
light yapping  down  at  Rex  and  Dewey,  the  house- 
dogs in  the  two  farms  below.  Rex  is  a  Scotch  collie, 
Dewey  a  dreadful  mix  of  dog-dregs.  He  had  been 
tail-ender  in  the  pack  for  a  while  during  the  after- 
noon. Both  dogs  an- 
swered back  at  the 
young  fox.  But  he 
could  not  egg  them 
on.  Rex  was  too 
fat,  Dewey  had 
had  enough ; 


not    so    the 


young  fox.  -  ^:-  'Pf 

It  had  been    fun. 

He  wanted    more 

"Comeon?Dewey!" 

he  cried.  "  Come  on,  Rex,  play  tag  again  !  You  're 

still  < it.'" 

I  was  at  work  with  my  chickens  one  spring  day 
when  the  fox  broke  from  cover  in  the  tall  woods, 
struck  the  old  wagon-road  along  the  ridge,  and  came 
at  a  gallop  down  behind  the  hen-coops,  with  five 
hounds  not  a  minute  behind.  They  passed  with  a 
crash  and  were  gone  —  up  over  the  ridge  and  down 


IS   IT  A  LIFE   OF  FEAR?  67 

into  the  east  swamp.  Soon  I  noticed  that  the  pack 
had  broken,  deploying  in  every  direction,  beating 
the  ground  over  and  over.  Reynard  had  given  them 
the  slip  —  on  the  ridge-side,  evidently,  for  there  were 
no  cries  from  below  in  the  swamp. 

Leaving  my  work  at  noon,  I  went  down  to  restake 
my  cow  in  the  meadow.  I  had  just  drawn  her  chain- 
pin  when  down  the  road  through  the  orchard  behind 
me  came  the  fox,  hopping  high  up  and  down,  his 
neck  stretched,  his  eye  peeled  for  poultry.  Spying  a 
white  hen  of  my  neighbor's,  he  made  for  her,  clear 
to  the  barnyard  wall.  Then,  hopping  higher  for  a 
better  view,  he  sighted  another  hen  in  the  front  yard, 
skipped  in  gayly  through  the  fence,  seized  her,  and 
loped  across  the  road  and  away  up  the  birch-grown 
hills  beyond. 

The  dogs  had  been  at  his  very  heels  ten  minutes 
before.  He  had  fooled  them.  And  no  doubt  he  had 
done  it  again  and  again.  They  were  even  now  yelp- 
ing at  the  end  of  the  baffling  trail  behind  the  ridge. 
Let  them  yelp.  It  is  a  kind  and  convenient  habit  of 
dogs,  this  yelping,  one  can  tell  so  exactly  where  they 
are.  Meantime  one  can  take  a  turn  for  one's  self  at 
the  chase,  get  a  bite  of  chicken,  a  drink  of  water, 
a  wink  or  two  of  rest,  and  when  the  yelping  gets 
warm  again,  one  is  quite  ready  to  pick  up  one's 
heels  and  lead  the  pack  another  merry  dance.  The 
fox  is  quite  a  jolly  fellow. 

This  is  the  way  the  races  out  of  doors  are  all  run 


68  THE    SPRING   OF  THE  YEAR 

off.  Now  and  then  they  may  end  tragically.  A  fox, 
cannot  reckon  on  the  hunter  with  a  gun.  He  is  rac- 
ing against  the  pack  of  hounds.  But,  mortal  finish 
or  no,  the  spirit  of  the  chase  is  neither  rage  nor  ter- 
ror, but  the  excitement  of  a  matched  game,  the 
ecstasy  of  pursuit  for  the  hound,  the  passion  of  es- 
cape for  the  fox,  without  fury  or  fear  —  except  for 
the  instant  at  the  start  and  at  the  finish  —  when  it 
is  a  finish. 

This  is  the  spirit  of  the  chase  —  of  the  race,  more 
truly;  for  it  is  always  a  race,  where  the  stake  is  not 
life  and  death,  but  rather  the  joy  of  winning.  The 
hound  cares  as  little  for  his  own  life  as  for  the  life 
of  the  fox  he  is  hunting.  It  is  the  race,  instead,  that 
he  loves  ;  it  is  the  moments  of  crowded,  complete,  su- 
preme existence  for  him  —  "  glory  "  we  call  it  when 
men  run  it  off  together.  Death,  and  the  fear  of  death, 
the  animals  can  neither  understand  nor  feel.  Only 
enemies  exist  in  the  world  out  of  doors,  only  hounds, 
foxes,  hawks  —  they,  and  their  scents,  their  sounds 
and  shadows ;  and  not  fear,  but  readiness  only.  The 
level  of  wild  life,  of  the  soul  of  all  nature,  is  a  great 
serenity.  It  is  seldom  lowered,  but  often  raised  to  a 
higher  level,  intenser,  faster,  more  exultant. 

The  serrate  pines  on  my  horizon  are  not  the 
pickets  of  a  great  pen.  My  fields  and  swamps  and 
ponds  are  not  one  wide  battle-field,  as  if  the  only 
work  of  my  wild  neighbors  were  bloody  war,  and 
the  whole  of  their  existence  a  reign  of  terror.  This 


IS   IT  A  LIFE   OF   FEAR?  69 

is  a  universe  of  law  and  order  and  marvelous  bal- 
ance ;  conditions  these  of  life,  of  normal,  peaceful, 
joyous  life.  Life  and  not  death  is  the  law ;  joy  and 
not  fear  is  the  spirit,  is  the  frame  of  all  that  breathes, 
of  very  matter  itself. 

"And  ever  at  the  loom  of  Birth 

The  Mighty  Mother  weaves  and  sings; 
She  weaves  —  fresh  robes  for  mangled  earth; 
She  sings  —  fresh  hopes  for  desperate  things." 

But  suppose  the  fox  were  a  defenseless  rabbit, 
what  of  fear  and  terror  then  ? 

Ask  any  one  who  has  shot  in  the  rabbity  fields  of 
southern  New  Jersey.  The  rabbit  seldom  runs  in 
blind  terror.  He  is  soft-eyed,  and  timid,  and  as  gentle 
as  a  pigeon,  but  he  is  not  defenseless.  A  nobler  set 
of  legs  was  never  bestowed  by  nature  than  the  little 
cottontail's.  They  are  as  wings  compared  with  the 
bent,  bow  legs  that  bear  up  the  ordinary  rabbit- 
hound.  With  winged  legs,  protecting  color,  a  clear 
map  of  the  country  in  his  head,  —  its  stumps,  rail- 
piles,  cat-brier  tangles,  and  narrow  rabbit-roads,  — 
with  all  this  as  a  handicap,  Bunny  may  well  run  his 
usual  cool  and  winning  race.  The  balance  is  just  as 
even,  the  chances  quite  as  good,  and  the  contest 
every  bit  as  interesting  to  him  as  to  Reynard. 

I  have  seen  a  rabbit  squat  close  in  his  form  and 
let  a  hound  pass  yelping  within  a  few  feet  of  him, 
but  waiting  on  his  toes  as  ready  as  a  hair-trigger 
should  he  be  discovered. 


70  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

I  have  seen  him  leap  for  his  life  as  the  dog  sighted 
him,  and,  bounding  like  a  ball  across  the  stubble, 
disappear  in  the  woods,  the  hound  within  two  jumps 
of  his  flashing  tail.  I  have  waited  at  the  end  of  the 
wood-road  for  the  runners  to  come  back,  down  the 
home-stretch,  for  the  finish.  On  they  go  through 
the  woods,  for  a  quarter,  or  perhaps  a  half  a  mile, 
the  baying  of  the  hound  faint  and  intermittent 
in  the  distance,  then  quite  lost.  No,  there  it  is  again, 
louder  now.  They  have  turned  the  course. 

I  wait. 

The  quiet  life  of  the  woods  is  undisturbed ;  for 
the  voice  of  the  hound  is  only  an  echo,  not  unlike 
the  far-off  tolling  of  a  slow-swinging  bell.  The 
leaves  stir  as  a  wood  mouse  scurries  from  his  stump ; 
an  acorn  rattles  down  ;  then  in  the  winding  wood- 
road  I  hear  the  pit-pat,  pit-pat,  of  soft  furry  feet, 
and  there  at  the  bend  is  the  rabbit.  He  stops,  rises 
high  up  on  his  haunches,  and  listens.  He  drops  again 
upon  all  fours,  scratches  himself  behind  the  ear, 
reaches  over  the  cart-rut  for  a  nip  of  sassafras,  hops 
a  little  nearer,  and  throws  his  big  ears  forward  in 
quick  alarm,  for  he  sees  me,  and,  as  if  something 
had  exploded  under  him,  he  kicks  into  the  air  and 
is  off,  —  leaving  a  pretty  tangle  for  the  dog  to  un- 
ravel, later  on,  by  this  mighty  jump  to  the  side. 

My  children  and  a  woodchopper  were  witnesses  re- 
cently of  an  exciting,  and,  for  this  section  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, a  novel  race,  which,  but  for  them,  must 


IS  IT  A  LIFE   OF   FEAR? 


71 


certainly  have  ended  fatally.  The  boys  were  coming 
through  the  wood-lot  where  the  man  was  chopping, 
when  down  the  hillside  toward  them  rushed  a  little 
chipmunk,  his  teeth  a-chatter  with  terror ;  for  close 
behind  him,  with  the  easy,  wavy  motion 
of  a  shadow,  glided  a  dark-brown  ani- 
mal, which  the  man  took  on  the  instant 
for  a  mink,  but  which  must  have  been 
a  large  weasel  or  a  pine  marten.  When 
almost  at  the  feet  of  the  boys,  and 
about  to  be  seized  by  the  marten,  the 
squeaking  chipmunk  ran  up  a  tree. 
Up  glided  the  marten,  up  for  twenty 
feet,  when  the  chipmunk  jumped.  It 
was  a  fearfully  close  call. 

The  marten  did  not  dare  to  jump, 
but  turned  and  started  down,  when  the 
man  intercepted  him 
with  a  stick. 
Around  and 
around  the 
tree     he 

dodged,  growling  and  snarling  and    avoid- 

ing the  stick,  not  a  bit  abashed,  fpF  stubbornly 
holding  his  own,  until  forced  to  seek  refuge  among 
the  branches.  Meanwhile,  the  terrified  chipmunk 
had  recovered  his  nerve  and  sat  quietly  watching 
the  sudden  turn  of  affairs  from  a  near-by  stump. 
I  frequently  climb  into  the  cupola  of  the  barn 


72  THE   SPRING   OF  THE   YEAR 

during1  the  winter,  and  bring  down  a  dazed  junco 
that  would  beat  his  life  out  up  there  against  the 
window-panes.  He  will  lie  on  his  back  in  my  open 
hand,  either  feigning  death  or  really  powerless  with 
fear.  His  eyes  will  close,  his  whole  tiny  body  throb 
convulsively  with  his  throbbing  heart.  Taking  him 
to  the  door,  I  will  turn  him  over  and  give  him  a 
gentle  toss.  Instantly  his  wings  flash  ;  they  take  him 
zigzag  for  a  yard  or  two,  then  bear  him  swiftly  round 
the  corner  of  the  house  and  drop  him  in  the  midst 
of  his  fellows,  where  they  are  feeding  upon  the  lawn. 
He  will  shape  himself  up  a  little  and  fall  to  picking 
with  the  others. 

From  a  state  of  collapse  the  laws  of  his  being 
bring  the  bird  into  normal  behavior  as  quickly  and 
completely  as  the  collapsed  rubber  ball  is  rounded 
by  the  laws  of  its  being.  The  memory  of  the  fright 
seems  to  be  an  impression  exactly  like  the  dent  in 
the  rubber  ball  —  as  if  it  had  never  been. 

Memories,  of  course,  the  animals  surely  have;  but 
little  or  no  power  to  use  them.  The  dog  will  some- 
times seem  to  cherish  a  grudge ;  so  will  the  elephant. 
Some  one  injures  or  wrongs  him,  and  the  huge 
beast  harbors  the  memory,  broods  it,  and  awaits  his 
opportunity  for  revenge.  Yet  the  records  of  these 
cases  usually  show  that  the  creature  had  been  living 
with  the  object  of  his  hatred  —  his  keeper,  perhaps 
—  and  that  the  memory  goes  no  farther  back  than 
the  present  moment,  than  the  sight  of  the  hated  one. 


IS   IT  A  LIFE  OF   FEAR  ?  73 

At  my  railroad  station  I  frequently  see  a  yoke  of 
great  sleepy,  bald-faced  oxen,  that  look  as  much 
alike  as  two  blackbirds.  Their  driver  knows  them 
apart ;  but  as  they  stand  there,  bound  to  one  an- 
other by  the  heavy  bar  across  their  foreheads,  it 
would  puzzle  anybody  else  to  tell  Buck  from  Berry. 
But  not  if  he  approach  them  wearing  an  overcoat. 
At  sight  of  me  in  an  overcoat  the  off  ox  will  snort 
and  back  and  thrash  about  in  terror,  twisting  the 
head  of  his  yoke-fellow,  nearly  breaking  his  neck, 
and  trampling  him  miserably.  But  the  nigh  ox  is 
used  to  it.  He  chews  and  blinks  away  placidly,  keeps 
his  feet  the  best  he  can,  and  does  n't  try  to  under- 
stand at  all  why  greatcoats  should  so  frighten  his 
cud-chewing  brother.  I  will  drop  off  my  coat  and  go 
up  immediately  to  smooth  the  muzzles  of  both  oxen, 
now  blinking  sleepily  while  the  lumber  is  being 
loaded  on. 

Years  ago,  the  driver  told  me,  the  off  ox  was 
badly  frightened  by  a  big  woolly  coat,  the  sight  or 
smell  of  which  probably  suggested  to  the  creature 
some  natural  enemy,  a  panther,  perhaps,  or  a  bear. 
The  memory  remained,  but  beyond  recall  except  in 
the  presence  of  its  first  cause,  the  greatcoat. 

To  us  there  are  such  things  as  terror  and  death, 
but  not  to  the  lower  animals  except  momentarily. 
We  are  clutched  by  terror  even  as  the  junco  was 
clutched  in  my  goblin  hand.  When  the  mighty  fin- 
gers open,  we  zigzag,  dazed,  from  the  danger ;  but 


74  THE    SPRING  OF  THE   YEAR 

fall  to  planning  before  the  tremors  of  the  fright 
have  ceased.  Upon  the  crumbled,  smoking  heap  of 
San  Francisco  a  second  splendid  city  has  arisen  and 
shall  ever  rise.  Terror  can  kill  the  living,  but  it  can- 
not hinder  them  from  forgetting,  or  prevent  them 
from  hoping,  or,  for  more  than  an  instant,  stop 
them  from  doing.  Such  is  the  law  of  life  —  the  law 
of  heaven,  of  my  pastures,  of  the  little  junco,  of  my- 
self. Life,  Law,  and  Matter  are  all  of  one  piece. 
The  horse  in  my  stable,  the  robin,  the  toad,  the 
beetle,  the  vine  in  my  garden,  the  garden  itself, 
and  I  together  with  them  all,  come  out  of  the  same 
divine  dust ;  we  all  breathe  the  same  divine  breath ; 
we  have  our  beings  under  the  same  divine  laws;  only 
they  do  not  know  that  the  law,  the  breath,  and  the 
dust  are  divine.  If,  with  all  that  I  know  of  fear,  I 
can  so  readily  forget  it,  and  can  so  constantly  feel 
the  hope  and  the  joy  of  life  within  me,  how  soon  for 
them,  my  lowly  fellow  mortals,  must  vanish  all  sight 
of  fear,  all  memory  of  pain  !  And  how  abiding  with 
them,  how  compelling,  the  necessity  to  live  !  And 
in  their  unquestioning  obedience,  what  joy  ! 

The  face  of  the  fields  is  as  changeful  as  the  face 
of  a  child.  Every  passing  wind,  every  shifting  cloud, 
every  calling  bird,  every  baying  hound,  every  shape, 
shadow,  fragrance,  sound,  and  tremor,  are  reflected 
there.  But  if  time  and  experience  and  pain  come,  they 
pass  utterly  away ;  for  the  face  of  the  fields  does  not 
grow  old  or  wise  or  seamed  with  pain.  It  is  always  the 


IS   IT  A  LIFE  OF  FEAR?  75 

face  of  a  child, — asleep  in  winter,  awake  in  spring  and 
summer,  —  a  face  of  life  and  health  always,  as  much 
in  the  falling  leaf  as  in  the  opening  bud,  as  much 
under  the  covers  of  the  snow  as  in  the  greensward 
of  the  spring,  as  much  in  the  wild,  fierce  joy  of  fox 
and  hound  as  they  course  the  turning,  tangling  paths 
of  the  woodlands  in  their  fateful  race  as  in  the  song 
of  brook  and  bird  on  a  joyous  April  morning. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  BUZZARD  OF  THE  BEAR  SWAMP 

NO,  I  do  not  believe  that  any  one  of  you  ever 
went  into  a  swamp  to  find  a  turkey  buzzard's 
nest.  Still,  if  you  had  been  born  on  the 
edge  of  a  great  swamp,  as  I  was,  and  if  the  great- 
winged  buzzards  had  been  soaring,  soaring  up  in 
your  sky,  as  all  through  my  boyhood  they  were 
soaring  up  in  mine,  then  why  should  you  not  have 
gone  some  time  into  the  swamp  to  see  where  they 
make  their  nests  —  these  strange  cloud-winged  crea- 
tures ? 

Boys  are  boys,  and  girls  are  girls,  the  world  over; 
and  I  am  pretty  sure  that  little  Jack  Horner  and 
myself  were  not  the  only  two  boys  in  all  the  world 
to  do  great  and  wonderful  deeds.  Any  boy  with  a 
love  for  birds  and  a  longing  for  the  deep  woods, 
living  close  to  the  edge  of  the  Bear  Swamp,  would 
have  searched  out  that  buzzard's  nest. 

Although  I  was  born  within  the  shadows  of  the 
Bear  Swamp,  close  enough  to  smell  the  magnolias 
along  its  margin,  and  lived  my  first  ten  years  only  a 
little  farther  off,  yet  it  was  not  until  after  twice 
ten  years  of  absence  that  I  stood  again  within  sight 


THE   BUZZARD   OF   THE  BEAR   SWAMP    77 

of  it,  ready  for  the  first  time  to  cross  its  dark  bor- 
ders and  find  the  buzzard's  nest. 

Now  here  at  last  I  found  myself,  looking  down 
over  the  largest,  least  trod,  deepest-tangled  swamp 
in  southern  New  Jersey  —  wide,  gloomy,  silent,  and 
to  me,  —  for  I  still  thought  of  it  as  I  used  to  when 
a  child,  —  to  me,  a  mysterious  realm  of  black  streams, 
hollow  trees,  animal  trails,  and  haunting  shapes, 
presided  over  by  this  great  bird,  the  turkey  buzzard. 

For  he  was  never  mere  bird  to  me,  but  some  kind 
of  spirit.  He  stood  to  me  for  what  was  far  off,  mys- 
terious, secret,  and  unapproachable  in  the  deep,  dark 
swamp ;  and,  in  the  sky,  so  wide  were  his  wings,  so 
majestic  the  sweep  of  his  flight,  he  had  always 
stirred  me,  caused  me  to  hold  my  breath  and  wish 
myself  to  fly. 

No  other  bird  did  I  so  much  miss  from  my  New 
England  skies  when  I  came  here  to  live.  Only  the 
other  day,  standing  in  the  heart  of  Boston,  I  glanced 
up  and  saw,  sailing  at  a  far  height  against  the  bil- 
lowy clouds,  an  aeroplane  ;  and  what  should  I  think 
of  but  the  flight  of  the  vulture,  so  like  the  steady 
wings  of  the  great  bird  seemed  the  steady  wings  of 
this  great  monoplane  far  off  against  the  sky. 

And  so  you  begin  to  understand  why  I  had  come 
back  after  so  many  years  to  the  swamp,  and  why  I 
wanted  to  see  the  nest  of  this  strange  bird  that  had 
been  flying,  flying  forever  in  my  imagination  and 
in  my  sky.  But  my  good  uncle,  whom  I  was  visit- 


78  THE   SPRING  OF  THE   YEAR 

ing,  when  I  mentioned  iny  quest,  merely  exclaimed, 
"What  in  th moderation!" 

You  will  find  a  good  many  uncles  and  other  folk 
who  won't  understand  a  good  many  things  that  you 
want  to  do.  Never  mind.  If  you  want  to  see  a  buz- 
zard's nest,  let  all  your  relations  exclaim  while  you 
go  quietly  off  alone  and  see  it. 

I  wanted  to  find  a  buzzard's  nest — the  nest  of 
the  Bear  Swamp  buzzard ;  and  here  at  last  I  stood ; 
and  yonder  on  the  clouds,  a  mere  mote  in  the  dis- 
tance, floated  the  bird.  It  was  coming  toward  me 
over  the  wide  reach  of  the  swamp. 

Silent,  inscrutable,  and  alien  lay  the  swamp,  and 
untouched  by  human  hands.  Over  it  spread  a  quiet 
and  reserve  as  real  as  twilight.  Like  a  mask  it  was 
worn,  and  was  slipped  on,  I  know,  at  my  approach. 
I  could  feel  the  silent  spirit  of  the  place  drawing 
back  away  from  me.  But  I  should  have  at  least 
a  guide  to  lead  me  through  the  shadow  land,  for  out 
of  the  lower  living  green  towered  a  line  of  limb- 
less stubs,  like  a  line  of  telegraph-poles,  their  bleached 
bones  gleaming  white,  or  showing  dark  and  gaunt 
against  the  horizon,  and  marking  for  me  a  path  far 
out  across  the  swamp.  Besides,  here  came  the  buzzard 
winding  slowly  down  the  clouds.  Soon  its  spiral 
changed  to  a  long  pendulum-swing,  till  just  above 
the  skeleton  trees  the  great  bird  wheeled  and,  brac- 
ing itself  with  its  flapping  wings,  dropped  heavily 
upon  one  of  the  headless  tree-trunks. 


THE  BUZZARD  OF  THE   BEAR   SWAMP     79 

It  had  come  leisurely,  yet  I  could 
see  that  it  had  come  with  a  direct- 
ness and  purpose  that  was  unmistak- 
able and  also   meaningful.    It  had 
discovered  me  in  the  distance,  and, 
while  still  invisible  to  my  eyes, 
had    started    down    to    perch 
upon  that  giant  stub  in  order 
to  watch  me.  It  was  suspicious, 
and  had   come  to  watch    me, 
because  somewhere  beneath  its 
perch,  I  felt  sure,  lay  a  hollow 
log,   the  creature's  den,   hold- 
ing its  two  eggs  or  its  young. 
A  buzzard  has  something 
like  a  soul. 

Marking  the  direction 
of  the  stub,  and  its 
probable  distance,  I 
waded  into  the  deep  un- 
derbrush, the  buzzard 
perched  against  the  sky 
for  my  guide,  and,  for 
my  quest,  the  stump  or 
hollow  log  that  held  the 
creature's  nest. 

The  rank  ferns  and 
ropy  vines  swallowed 
me  up,  and  shut  out  at 


80  THE   SPRING  OF  THE   YEAR 

times  even  the  sight  of  the  sky  and  the  buzzard.  It 
was  not  until  half  an  hour's  struggle  that,  climbing 
a  pine-crested  swell  in  the  low  bottom,  I  sighted  the 
bird  again.  It  had  not  moved. 

I  was  now  in  the  real  swamp,  the  old  uncut  forest. 
It  wa§  a  land  of  tree  giants :  huge  tulip  poplar  and 
swamp  white  oak,  so  old  that  they  had  become  soli- 
tary? their  comrades  having  fallen  one  by  one  ;  while 
some  of  them,  unable  to  loose  their  grip  upon  the  soil, 
which  had  widened  and  tightened  through  centuries, 
were  still  standing,  though  long  since  dead.  It  was 
upon  one  of  these  that  the  buzzard  sat  humped. 

Directly  in  my  path  stood  an  ancient  swamp  white 
oak,  the  greatest  tree,  I  think,  that  I  have  ever  seen. 
It  was  not  the  highest,  nor  the  largest  round,  per- 
haps, but  in  years  and  looks  the  greatest.  Hoary, 
hollow,  and  broken-limbed,  his  huge  bole  seemed 
encircled  with  the  centuries. 

"  For  it  had  bene  an  aimcient  tree, 
Sacred  with  many  a  mysteree." 

Above  him  to  twice  his  height  loomed  a  tulip  pop- 
lar, clean-boled  for  thirty  feet  and  in  the  top  all 
green  and  gold  with  blossoms.  It  was  a  resplendent 
thing  beside  the  oak,  yet  how  unmistakably  the 
gnarled  old  monarch  wore  the  crown !  His  girth  more 
than  balanced  the  poplar's  greater  height;  and,  as 
for  blossoms,  he  had  his  tiny-flowered  catkins ;  but 
nature  knows  the  beauty  of  strength  and  inward 
majesty,  and  has  pinned  no  boutonniere  upon  the  oak, 


THE   BUZZARD   OF   THE   BEAR   SWAMP     81 

My  buzzard  now  was  hardly  more  than  half  a  mile 
away,  and  plainly  seen  through  the  rifts  in  the  lofty 
timbered  roof  above  me.  As  I  was  nearing  the  top 
of  a  large  fallen  pine  that  lay  in  my  course,  I  was 
startled  by  the  burrh !  burrh  !  burrh !  of  three  par- 
tridges taking  wing  just  beyond,  near  the  foot  of 
the  tree.  Their  exploding  flight  seemed  all  the  more 
like  a  real  explosion  when  three  little  clouds  of  dust- 
smoke  rose  out  of  the  low,  wet  bottom  of  the  swamp 
and  drifted  up  against  the  green. 

Then  I  saw  an  interesting  sight.  The  pine,  in  its 
fall,  had  snatched  with  its  wide-reaching,  multitudi- 
nous roots  at  the  shallow  bottom  and  torn  out  a  giant 
fistful  of  earth,  leaving  a  hole  about  two  feet  deep  and 
more  than  a  dozen  feet  wide.  The  sand  thus  lifted 
into  the  air  had  gradually  washed  down  into  a  mound 
on  each  side  of  the  butt,  where  it  lay  high  and  dry 
above  the  level  of  the  wet  swamp.  This  the  swamp 
birds  had  turned  into  a  great  dust-bath.  It  was  in 
constant  use,  evidently.  Not  a  spear  of  grass  had 
sprouted  in  it,  and  all  over  it  were  pits  and  craters 
of  various  sizes,  showing  that  not  only  the  partridges 
but  also  the  quail  and  such  small  things  as  the 
warblers  bathed  here, — though  I  can't  recall  ever 
having  seen  a  warbler  bathe  in  the  dust.  A  dry  bath 
in  the  swamp  was  something  of  a  luxury,  evidently. 
I  wonder  if  the  buzzards  used  it? 

I  went  forward  cautiously  now,  and  expectantly, 
for  I  was  close  enough  to  see  the  white  beak  and 

o 


82  THE   SPRING   OF  THE  YEAR 

red  wattled  neck  of  my  buzzard  guide.  The  buzzard 
saw  me,  too,  and  began  to  twist  its  head  and  to 
twitch  its  wing-tips  nervously.  Then  the  long,  black 
wings  began  to  open,  as  you  would  open  a  two-foot 
rule,  and,  with  a  heavy  lurch  that  left  the  dead  stub 
rocking,  the  bird  dropped  and  was  soon  soaring 
high  up  in  the  blue. 

This  was  the  locality  of  the  nest;  now  where 
should  I  find  it?  Evidently  I  was  to  have  no  further 
help  from  the  old  bird.  The  underbrush  was  so  thick 
that  I  could  hardly  see  farther  than  my  nose.  A 
half -rotten  tree-trunk  lay  near,  the  top  end  resting 
across  the  backs  of  several  saplings  that  it  had  borne 
down  in  its  fall.  I  crept  up  on  this  for  a  look  around, 
and  almost  tumbled  off  at  finding  myself  staring 
directly  into  the  dark,  cavernous  hollow  of  an  im- 
mense log  lying  on  a  slight  rise  of  ground  a  few 
feet  ahead  of  me. 

It  was  a  yawning  hole,  which  at  a  glance  I  knew 
belonged  to  the  buzzard.  The  log,  a  mere  shell  of  a 
mighty  white  oak,  had  been  girdled  and  felled  with 
an  axe,  by  coon-hunters  probably,  and  still  lay  with 
one  side  resting  upon  the  rim  of  the  stump.  As  I 
stood  looking,  something  white  stirred  vaguely  in 
the  hole  and  disappeared. 

Leaping  from  my  perch,  I  scrambled  forward  to 
the  mouth  of  the  hollow  log  and  was  greeted  with 
hisses  from  far  back  in  the  dark.  Then  came  a  thump- 
ing of  bare  feet,  more  hisses,  and  a  sound  of  snap* 
ping  beaks.  I  had  found  my  buzzard's  nest! 


YOUNG  TURKEY  BUZZARD 


84  THE   SPRING  OF  THE   YEAR 

Hardly  that,  either,  for  there  was  not  a  feather, 
stick,  or  chip  as  evidence  of  a  nest.  The  eggs  had 
been  laid  upon  the  sloping  cavern  floor,  and  in  the 
course  of  their  incubation  must  have  rolled  clear 
down  to  the  opposite  end,  where  the  opening  was  so 
narrow  that  the  buzzard  could  not  have  brooded  them 
until  she  had  rolled  them  back.  The  wonder  is  that 
they  had  ever  hatched. 

But  they  had,  and  what  they  hatched  was  another 
wonder.  Nature  never  intended  a  young  buzzard 
for  any  eye  but  his  mother's,  and  she  hates  the  sight 
of  him.  Elsewhere  I  have  told  of  a  buzzard  that 
devoured  her  eggs  at  the  approach  of  an  enemy,  so 
delicately  balanced  are  her  unnamable  appetites  and 
her  maternal  affections! 

The  two  strange  nestlings  in  the  log  must  have 
been  three  weeks  old,  I  should  say,  the  larger  weigh- 
ing about  four  pounds.  They  were  covered,  as  young 
owls  are,  with  deep  snow-white  down,  out  of  which 
protruded  their  black  scaly,  snaky  legs.  They  stood 
braced  on  these  long  black  legs,  their  receding 
heads  drawn  back,  shoulders  thrust  forward,  and 
bodies  humped  between  the  featherless  wings  like 
challenging-  tom-cats. 

O        O 

In  order  to  examine  them,  I  crawled  into  the  den 
— not  a  difficult  act,  for  the  opening  measured  four 
feet  and  a  half  across  at  the  mouth.  The  air  was 
musty  inside,  yet  surprisingly  free  from  odor.  The 
floor  was  absolutely  clean,  but  on  the  top  and  sides 


THE   BUZZARD   OF  THE    BEAR   SWAMP    85 

of  the  cavity  was  a  thick  coating  of  live  mosquitoes, 
most  of  them  gorged,  hanging  like  a  red-beaded 
tapestry  over  the  walls. 

I  had  taken  pains  that  the  flying  buzzard  should 
not  see  me  enter,  for  I  hoped  she  would  descend  to 
look  after  her  young.  But  she  would  take  no  chances 
with  herself.  I  sat  near  the  mouth  of  the  hollow, 
where  I  could  catch  the  fresh  breeze  that  pulled 
across  the  end,  and  where  I  had  a  view  of  a  far-away 
bit  of  sky.  Suddenly,  across  this  field  of  blue,  there 
swept  a  meteor  of  black  —  the  buzzard!  and  evidently 
in  that  instant  of  passage,  at  a  distance  certainly  of 
half  a  mile,  she  spied  me  in  the  log. 

I  waited  more  than  an  hour  longer,  and  when  I 
tumbled  out  with  a  dozen  kinds  of  cramps,  the  un- 
worried  mother  was  soaring  serenely  far  up  in  the 
clear,  cool  sky. 


CHAPTER   X 

A    CHAPTER    OF    THINGS    TO    HEAR    THIS    SPRING 


THE  frogs  !  You  can  have  no  spring  until  you 
hear  the  frogs.  The  first  shrill  notes,  heard 
before  the  ice  is  fairly  out  of  the  marshes, 
will  be  the  waking  call  of  the  hylas,  the  tiny  tree- 
frogs  that  later  on  in  the  summer  you  will  find  in  the 
woods.  Then,  as  the  spring  advances  and  this  sil- 
very sleigh-bell  jingle  tinkles  faster,  other  voices 
will  join  in  —  the  soft  croak  of  the  spotted  leopard 
frogs,  the  still  softer  melancholy  quaver  of  the  com- 
mon toad,  and  away  down  at  the  end  of  the  scale  the 
deep,  solemn  bass  of  the  great  bullfrog  saying,  "  Go 
round  !  Better  go  round  !  " 

II 

You  must  hear,  besides  the  first  spring  notes  of  the 
bluebird  and  the  robin,  four  bird  songs  this  spring. 
First  (1)  the  song  of  the  wood  thrush  or  the  hermit 
thrush,  whichever  one  lives  in  your  neighborhood. 
No  words  can  describe  the  purity,  the  peacefulness, 
the  spiritual  quality  of  the  wood  thrush's  simple 
"  Come  to  me."  It  is  the  voice  of  the 
tender  twilight,  the  voice  of  the  tran- 


THINGS  TO   HEAR  THIS   SPRING         87 

quil  forest,  speaking  to  you.    After  the  thrush  (2) 
the  brown  thrasher,  our  finest,  most  gifted  songster, 


as  great  a  singer,  I  think  (and  I  have  often  heard 
them  both),  as  the  Southern  mockingbird.  Then  (3) 
the  operatic  catbird.  She  sits  lower  down  among 
the  bushes  than  the  brown  thrasher,  as  if  she  knew 
that,  compared  with  him,  she  must  take  a  back  seat; 
but  for  variety  of  notes  and  length  of  song,  she  has 
few  rivals.  I  say  she,  when  really  I  ought  to  say  he, 
for  it  is  the  males  of  most  birds  that  sing,  but  the  cat- 
bird seems  so  long  and  slender,  so  dainty  and  femi- 
nine, that  I  think  of  this  singer  as  of  some  exquisite 
operatic  singer  in  a  woman's  role.  Then  (4)  the 
bobolink ;  for  his  song  is  just  like  Bryant's  bubbling 
poem,  only  better  !  Go  to  the  meadows  in.  June  and 


88  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

listen  as  he  comes  lilting  and  singing  over  your 
head. 

Ill 

There  are  some  birds  that  cannot  sing:  the  belted 
kingfisher,  for  instance ;  he  can  only  rattle.  You 
must  hear  him  rattle.  You  can  do  as  well  yourself  if 
you  will  shake  a  "  pair  of  bones  "  or  heave  an  anchor 
and  let  the  chain  run  fast  through  the  hawse-hole. 
You  then  must  hear  the  downy  woodpecker  doing 
his  rattling  rat-ta-tat-tat-tat-tat  (across  the  page  and 
back  again),  as  fast  as  rat-ta-tat  can  tat.  How  he 
makes  the  old  dead  limb  or  fence-post  rattle  as  he 
drums  upon  it  with  his  chisel  bill.  He  can  be  heard 
half  a  mile  around. 

Then  high-hole,  the  flicker  (or  golden-winged 
woodpecker),  you  must  hear  him  yell,  Up-up-up-up-up 
up-up-up-up-up-up ,  —  a  ringing,  rolling,  rapid  kind 
of  yodel  that  echoes  over  the  spring  fields. 

IV 

You  must  hear  the  nighthawk  and  the  whip-poor- 
will.  Both  birds  are  to  be  heard  at  twilight,  and  the 
whip-poor-will  far  into  the  night.  At  the  very  break 
of  dawn  is  also  a  good  time  to  listen  to  them. 

At  dusk  you  will  see  (I  have  seen  him  from  the 
city  roofs  in  Boston)  a  bird  about  the  size  of  a  pigeon 
mounting  up  into  the  sky  by  short  flights,  crying 
peent,  until  far  over  your  head  the  creature  will  sud- 
denly turn  and  on  half-closed  wings  dive  headlong 


THINGS  TO   HEAR  THIS   SPRING          89 

toward  the  earth,  when,  just  before  hitting  the 
ground,  upward  he  swoops,  at  the  same  instant 
making  a  weird  booming  sound,  a  kind  of  hollow 

O  O  ' 

groan  with  his  wings,  as  the  wind  rushes  through 
their  large  feathers.  This  diver  through  the  dim 
ocean  of  air  is  the  nighthawk.  Let  one  of  the 
birds  dive  close  to  your  head  on  a  lonely  dusky 
road,  and  your  hair  will  try  to  jump  out  from  under 
your  hat. 

The  whip-poor-will's  cry  you  all  know.  When  you 
hear  one  this  spring,  go  out  into  the  twilight  and 
watch  for  him.  See  him  spring  into  the  air,  like  a 
strange  shadow,  for  flies;  count  his  whip-poor-wills 
(he  may  call  it  more  than  a  hundred  times  in  as  many 
seconds  !).  But  hear  a  circle  of  the  birds,  if  possible, 
calling  through  the  darkness  of  a  wood  all  around 

you ! 

V 

There  is  one  strange  bird  song  that  is  half  song  and 
half  dance  that  perhaps  most  of  you  may  never  be  able 
to  hear  and  see ;  but  as  it  is  worth  going  miles  to  hear, 
and  nights  of  watching  to  witness,  I  am  going  to  set 
it  here  as  one  of  your  outdoor  tasks  or  feats:  you 
must  hear  the  mating  song  of  the  woodcock.  I  have 
described  the  song  and  the  dance  in  "  Roof  and 
Meadow,"  in  the  chapter  called  "  One  Flew  East 
and  One  Flew  West."  Mr.  Bradford  Torrey  has  an 
account  of  it  in  his  "Clerk  of  the  Woods,"  in  the 
chapter  named  "  Woodcock  Vespers."  To  hear  the 


90  THE   SPRING   OF  THE   YEAR 

song  is  a  rare  experience  for  the  habitual  watcher 
in  the  woods,  but  one  that  you  might  have  the  first 
April  evening  that  you  are  abroad. 

Go  down  to  your  nearest  meadow  —  a  meadow 
near  a  swampy  piece  of  woods  is  best  —  and  here, 
along  the  bank  of  the  meadow  stream,  wait  in  the 
chilly  twilight  for  the  speank,  speank,  or  the  peent, 
peent,  from  the  grass — the  signal  that  the  song  is 
about  to  begin. 

VI 

One  of  the  dreadful — positively  dreadful — 
sounds  of  the  late  spring  that  I  hear  day  in  and  day 
out  is  the  gobbling,  strangling,  ghastly  cries  of 
young  crows  feeding.  You  will  surely  think  some- 
thing is  being  murdered.  The  crying  of  a  hungry 
baby  is  musical  in  comparison.  But  it  is  a  good 
sound  to  hear,  for  it  reminds  one  of  the  babes  in  the 
woods — that  a  new  generation  of  birds  is  being 
brought  through  from  babyhood  to  gladden  the 
world.  It  is  a  tender  sound !  The  year  is  still 


young. 


VII 


You  should  hear  the  hum  of  the  honey-bees  on  a 
fresh  May  day  in  an  apple  tree  that  is  just  coming 
into  perfect  bloom.  The  enchanting  loveliness  of 
the  pink  and  white  world  of  blossoms  is  enough  to 
make  one  forget  to  listen  to  the  hum-hum-hum- 


THINGS  TO   HEAR   THIS   SPRING          91 

humming-ing-ing-ing-ing  of  the  excited  bees.  But 
hear  their  myriad  wings,  fanning  the  perfume  into 
the  air  and  filling  the  sunshine  with  the  music  of 
work.  The  whir,  the  hum  of  labor  —  of  a  busy  fac- 
tory, of  a  great  steamship  dock  — is  always  music 
to  those  who  know  the  blessedness  of  work ;  but  it 
takes  that  knowledge,  and  a 'good  deal  of  imagination 
besides,  to  hear  the  music  in  it.  Not  so  with  the  bees. 
The  season,  the  day,  the  colors,  and  perfumes  —  they 
are  the  song ;  the  wings  are  only  the  million-stringed 
seolian  upon  which  the  song  is  played. 

VIII 

You  should  hear  the  grass  grow.  What !  I  re- 
peat, you  should  hear  the  grass  grow.  I  have  a  friend, 
a  sound  and  sensible  man,  but  a  lover  of  the  out-of- 
doors,  who  says  he  can  hear  it  grow.  But  perhaps  it 
is  the  soft  stir  of  the  working  earthworms  that  he 
hears.  Try  it.  Go  out  alone  one  of  these  April 
nights ;  select  a  green  pasture  with  a  slope  to  the 
south,  at  least  a  mile  from  any  house,  or  railroad  ;  lay 
your  ear  flat  upon  the  grass,  listen  without  a  move 
for  ten  minutes.  You  hear  something  —  or  do  you 
feel  it  ?  Is  it  the  reaching  up  of  the  grass  ?  is  it  the 
stir  of  the  earthworms?  is  it  the  pulse  of  the  throb- 
bing universe?  or  is  it  your  own  throbbing  pulse? 
It  is  all  of  these,  I  think ;  call  it  the  heart  of  the 
grass  beating  in  every  tiny  living  blade,  if  you  wish 
to.  You  should  listen  to  hear  the  grass  grow. 


92  THE   SPRING   OF  THE   YEAR 

IX 

The  fires  have  gone  out  on  the  open  hearth. 
Listen  early  in  the  morning  and  toward  evening  for 
the  rumbling,  the  small,  muffled  thunder,  of  the 
chimney  swallows,  as  they  come  down  from  the  open 
sky  on  their  wonderful  wings.  Don't  be  frightened. 
It  is  n't  Santa  Glaus  this  time  of  year ;  nor  is  it  the 
Old  Nick !  The  smothered  thunder  is  caused  by  the 
rapid  beating  of  the  swallows'  wings  on  the  air  in 
the  narrow  chimney-flue,  as  the  birds  settle  down 
from  the  top  of  the  chimney  and  hover  over  their 
nests.  Stick  your  head  into  the  fireplace  and  look 
up !  Don't  smoke  the  precious  lodgers  out,  no  matter 
how  much  racket  they  make. 


Hurry  out  while  the  last  drops  of  your  first  May 
thunder-shower  are  still  falling  and  listen  to  the 
robins  singing  from  the  tops  of  the  trees.  Their 
liquid  songs  are  as  fresh  as  the  shower,  as  if  the  rain- 
drops in  falling  were  running  down  from  the  trees 
in  song  —  as  indeed  they  are  in  the  overflowing 
trout-brook.  Go  out  and  listen,  and  write  a  better 
poem  than  this  one  that  I  wrote  the  other  afternoon 
when  listening  to  the  birds  in  our  first  spring 
shower  :  — 

The  warm  rain  drops  aslant  the  sun 

And  in  the  rain  the  robins  sing; 
Across  the  creek  in  twos  and  troops, 

The  hawking  swifts  and  swallows  wing. 


THINGS   TO  HEAR  THIS   SPRING          93 

The  air  is  sweet  with  apple  bloom, 

And  sweet  the  laid  dust  down  the  lane, 

The  meadow's  marge  of  calamus, 
And  sweet  the  robins  in  the  rain. 

O  greening  time  of  bloom  and  song! 

O  fragrant  days  of  tender  pain! 
The  wet,  the  warm,  the  sweet  young  days 

With  robins  singing  in  the  rain. 


CHAPTER   XI 

TURTLE    EGGS    FOR    AGASSIZ 

I  TOOK  down,  recently,  from  the  shelves  of  a 
great  public  library,  the  four  volumes  of  Ag- 
assiz's  "  Contributions  to  the  Natural  History 
of  the  United  States."  I  doubt  if  anybody  but  the 
charwoman,  with  her  duster,  had  touched  those  vol- 
umes for  twenty-five  years.  They  are  a  monumental 
work,  the  fruit  of  vast  and  heroic  labors,  with  colored 
plates  on  stone,  showing  the  turtles  of  the  United 
States,  and  their  life-history.  The  work  was  published 
more  than  half  a  century  ago,  but  it  looked  old 
beyond  its  years  —  massive,  heavy,  weathered,  as  if 
dug  from  the  rocks ;  and  I  soon  turned  with  a  sigh 
from  the  weary  learning  of  its  plates  and  diagrams 
to  look  at  the  preface. 

Then,  reading  down  through  the  catalogue  of 
human  names  and  of  thanks  for  help  received,  I 
came  to  a  sentence  beginning:  — 

"  In  New  England  I  have  myself  collected  largely  ; 
but  I  have  also. received  valuable  contributions  from 
the  late  Rev.  Zadoc  Thompson  of  Burlington ;  .  .  . 
from  Mr.  D.  Henry  Thoreau  of  Concord;  .  .  .  and 
from  Mr.  J.  W.  P.  Jenks  of  MiddleboroV  And  then 
it  hastens  on  with  the  thanks  in  order  to  get  to  the 


TURTLE  EGGS  FOR  AGASSIZ      95 

turtles,  as  if  turtles  were  the  one  and  only  thing  of 
real  importance  in  all  the  world. 

Turtles  are  important  —  interesting;  so  is  the  late 
Rev.  Zadoc  Thompson  of  Burlington.  Indeed  any 
reverend  gentleman  who  would  catch  turtles  for 
Agassiz  must  have  been  interesting.  If  Agassiz  had 
only  put  a  chapter  into  his  turtle  book  about  him! 
and  as  for  the  Mr.  Jenks  of  Middleboro'  (at  the  end 
of  the  quotation)  I  know  that  he  was  interesting;  for 
years  later,  he  was  an  old  college  professor  of  mine. 
He  told  me  some  of  the  particulars  of  his  turtle  contri- 
butions, particulars  which  Agassiz  should  have  found 
a  place  for  in  his  big  book.  The  preface  says  merely 
that  this  gentleman  sent  turtles  to  Cambridge  by  the 
thousands  —  brief  and  scanty  recognition.  For  that 
is  not  the  only  thing  this  gentleman  did.  On  one 
occasion  he  sent,  not  turtles,  but  turtle  eggs  to  Cam- 
bridge —  broiight  them,  I  should  say ;  and  all  there 
is  to  show  for  it,  so  far  as  I  could  discover,  is  a 
small  drawing  of  a  bit  of  one  of  the  eggs ! 

Of  course,  Agassiz  wanted  to  make  that  drawing, 
and  had  to  have  afresh  turtle  egg  to  draw  it  from. 
He  had  to  have  it,  and  he  got  it.  A  great  man,  when 
he  wants  a  certain  turtle  egg,  at  a  certain  time,  al- 
ways gets  it,  for  he  gets  some  one  else  to  get  it  for 
him.  I  am  glad  he  got  it.  But  what  makes  me  sad 
and  impatient  is  that  he  did  not  think  it  worth  while 
to  tell  us  about  the  getting  of  it. 

It  would  seem,  naturally,  that  there  could  be  noth- 


96  THE   SPRING   OF  THE   YEAR 

ing  unusual  or  interesting  about  the  getting  of  tur- 
tle eggs  when  you  want  them.  Nothing  at  all,  if  you 
should  chance  to  want  the  eggs  as  you  chance  to 
find  them.  So  with  anything  else.  But  if  you  want 
turtle  eggs  when  you  want  them,  and  are  bound  to 
have  them,  then  you  must  —  get  Mr.  Jenks,  or  some- 
body else  to  get  them  for  you. 

Agassiz  wanted  those  turtle  eggs  when  he  wanted 
them  —  not  a  minute  over  three  hours  from  the  min- 
ute they  were  laid.  Yet  even  that  does  not  seem  ex- 
acting, hardly  more  difficult  than  the  getting  of  hens' 
eggs  only  three  hours  old.  Just  so,  provided  the  pro- 
fessor could  have  had  his  private  turtle-coop  in 
Harvard  College  Yard ;  and  provided  he  could  have 
made  his  turtles  lay.  But  turtles  will  not  respond, 
like  hens,  to  meat-scraps  and  the  warm  mash.  The 
professor's  problem  was  not  to  get  from  a  mud 
turtle's  nest  in  the  back  yard  to  his  work-table  in 
the  laboratory;  but  to  get  from  the  laboratory  in 
Cambridge  to  some  pond  when  the  turtles  were  lay- 
ing, and  back  to  the  laboratory  within  the  limited 
time.  And  this  might  have  called  for  nice  and  dis- 
criminating work —  as  it  did. 

Agassiz  had  been  engaged  for  a  long  time  upon 
his  "Contributions."  He  had  brought  the  great  work 
nearly  to  a  finish.  It  was,  indeed,  finished  but  for 
one  small  yet  very  important  bit  of  observation :  he 
had  carried  the  turtle  egg  through  every  stage  of 
its  development  with  the  single  exception  of  one  — 


TURTLE   EGGS   FOR  AGASSIZ  97 

the  very  earliest.  That  beginning  stage  had  brought 
the  "  Contributions"  to  a  halt.  To  get  eggs  that  were 
fresh  enough  to  show  the  incubation  at  this  period 
had  been  impossible. 

There  were  several  ways  that  Agassiz  might  have 
proceeded :  he  might  have  got  a  leave  of  absence 
for  the  spring  term,  taken  his  laboratory  to  some 
pond  inhabited  by  turtles,  and  there  camped  until 
he  should  catch  the  reptile  digging  out  her  nest. 
But  there  were  difficulties  in  all  of  that — as  those 
who  are  college  professors  and  naturalists  know. 
As  this  was  quite  out  of  the  question,  he  did  the 
easiest  thing  —  asked  Mr.  Jenks  of  Middleboro  to 
get  him  the  eggs.  Mr.  Jenks  got  them.  Agassiz  knew 
all  about  his  getting  of  them  ;  and  I  say  the  strange 
and  irritating  thing  is,  that  Agassiz  did  not  think 
it  worth  while  to  tell  us  about  it,  at  least  in  the 
preface  to  his  monumental  work. 

It  was  many  years  later  that  Mr.  Jenks,  then  a 
gray-haired  college  professor,  told  me  how  he  got 
those  eggs  to  Agassiz. 

"  I  was  principal  of  an  academy,  during  my  younger 
years,"  he  began,  "  and  was  busy  one  day  with  my 
classes,  when  a  large  man  suddenly  filled  the  door- 
way  of  the  room,  smiled  to  the  four  corners  of  the 
room,  and  called  out  with  a  big,  quick  voice  that  he 
was  Professor  Agassiz. 

"  Of  course  he  was.  I  knew  it,  even  before  he  had 
had  time  to  shout  it  to  me  across  the  room. 


98  THE   SPRING   OF   THE  YEAR 

"  Would  I  get  him  some  turtle  eggs  ?  he  called. 
Yes,  I  would.  And  would  I  get  them  to  Cambridge 
within  three  hours  from  the  time  they  were  laid?  Yes, 
I  would.  And  I  did.  And  it  was  worth  the  doing. 
But  I  did  it  only  once. 

"  When  I  promised  Agassiz  those  eggs,  I  knew 
where  I  was  going  to  get  them.  I  had  got  turtle  eggs 
there  before  — at  a  particular  patch  of  sandy  shore 
along  a  pond,  a  few  miles  distant  from  the  acad- 
emy. 

"  Three  hours  was  the  limit.  From  the  railroad 
station  to  Boston  was  thirty-five  miles ;  from  the 
pond  to  the  station  was  perhaps  three  or  four  miles; 
from  Boston  to  Cambridge  we  called  about  three 
miles.  Forty  miles  in  round  numbers !  We  figured 
it  all  out  before  he  returned,  and  got  the  trip  down 
to  two  hours,  —  record  time  :  —  driving  from  the 
pond  to  the  station ;  from  the  station  by  express  train 
to  Boston  ;  from  Boston  by  cab  to  Cambridge.  This 
left  an  easy  hour  for  accidents  and  delays. 

"  Cab  and  car  and  carriage  we  reckoned  into  our 
time-table ;  but  what  we  did  n't  figure  on  was  the 
turtle."  And  he  paused  abruptly. 

"  Young  man,"  he  went  on,  his  shaggy  brows 
and  spectacles  hardly  hiding  the  twinkle  in  the  eyes 
that  were  bent  severely  upon  me,  "  young  man, 
when  you  go  after  turtle  eggs,  take  into  account  the 
turtle.  No !  No !  that 's  bad  advice.  Youth  never 
reckons  on  the  turtle —  and  youth  seldom  ought  to. 


TURTLE   EGGS   FOR  AGASSIZ  99 

Only  old  age  does  that ;  and  old  age  would  never 
have  got  those  turtle  eggs  to  Agassiz. 

"It  was  in  the  early  spring  that  Agassiz  came  to 
the  academy,  long  before  there  was  any  likelihood 
of  the  turtles'  laying.  But  I  was  eager  for  the  quest, 
and  so  fearful  of  failure  that  I  started  out  to  watch 
at  the  pond,  fully  two  weeks  ahead  of  the  time  that 
the  turtles  might  be  expected  to  lay.  I  remember 
the  date  clearly :  it  was  May  14th. 

"A  little  before  dawn — along  near  three  o'clock 
—  I  would  drive  over  to  the  pond,  hitch  my  horse 
near  by,  settle  myself  quietly  among  some  thick 
cedars  close  to  the  sandy  shore,  and  there  I  would 
wait,  my  kettle  of  sand  ready,  my  eye  covering  the 
whole  sleeping  pond.  Here  among  the  cedars  I  would 
eat  my  breakfast,  and  then  get  back  in  good  season 
to  open  the  academy  for  the  morning  session. 

"  And  so  the  watch  began. 

"I  soon  came  to  know  individually  the  dozen  or 
more  turtles  that  kept  to  my  side  of  the  pond. 
Shortly  after  the  cold  mist  would  lift  and  melt  away, 
they  would  stick  up  their  heads  through  the  quiet 
water ;  and  as  the  sun  slanted  down  over  the  ragged 
rim  of  tree-tops,  the  slow  things  would  float  into  the 
warm  lighted  spots,  or  crawl  out  and  doze  comfort- 
ably on  the  hummocks  and  snags. 

"  What  fragrant  mornings  those  were !  How  fresh 
and  new  and  unbreathed  !  The  pond  odors,  the 
woods  odors,  the  odors  of  the  ploughed  fields  —  of 


100  THE   SPRING   OF  THE  YEAR 

water-lily,  and  wild  grape,  and  the  dew-laid  soil !  1 
can  taste  them  yet,  and  hear  them  yet  —  the  still, 
large  sounds  of  the  waking  day  —  the  pickerel  break- 
ing the  quiet  with  his  swirl;  the  kingfisher  drop- 
ping anchor ;  the  stir  of  feet  and  wings  among  the 
trees.  And  then  the  thought  of  the  great  book  be- 
ing held  up  for  me !  Those  were  rare  mornings ! 

"  Bat  there  began  to  be  a  good  many  of  them,  for 
the  turtles  showed  no  desire  to  lay.  They  sprawled 
in  the  sun,  and  never  one  came  out  upon  the  sand 
as  if  she  intended  to  help  on  the  great  professor's 
book.  The  story  of  her  eggs  was  of  small  concern 
to  her;  her  contribution  to  the  Natural  History  of 
the  United  States  could  wait. 

"  And  it  did  wait.  I  began  my  watch  on  the  14th 
of  May ;  June  1st  found  me  still  among  the  cedars, 
still  waiting,  as  I  had  waited  every  morning,  Sun- 
days and  rainy  days  alike.  June  1st  was  a  perfect 
morning,  but  every  turtle  slid  out  upon  her  log,  as  if 
egg-laying  might  be  a  matter  strictly  of  next  year. 

"  I  began  to  grow  uneasy,  —  not  impatient  yet, 
for  a  naturalist  learns  his  lesson  of  patience  early, 
and  for  all  his  years ;  but  I  began  to  fear  lest,  by 
some  subtile  sense,  my  presence  might  somehow  be 
known  to  the  creatures ;  that  they  might  have  gone 
to  some  other  place  to  lay,  while  I  was  away  at  the 
schoolroom. 

"  I  watched  on  to  the  end  of  the  first  week,  on  to 
the  end  of  the  second  week  in  June,  seeing  the  mists 


TURTLE   EGGS  FOR  AGASSIZ  101 

rise  and  vanish  every  morning,  and  along  with  them 
vanish,  more  and  more,  the  poetry  of  my  early  morn- 
ing vigil.  Poetry  and  rheumatism  cannot  long  dwell 
together  in  the  same  clump  of  cedars,  and  I  had 
begun  to  feel  the  rheumatism.  A  month  of  morning 
mists  wrapping  me  around  had  at  last  soaked  through 
to  my  bones.  But  Agassiz  was  waiting,  and  the 
world  was  waiting,  for  those  turtl^iegjg^  an<f*J 
would  wait.  It  was  all  I  could  ,do,  .for  tljerje  is, no, 
use  bringing  a  china  nest-egg  td*a  Jtu*r£le$&lm'i§"ii£)V 
open  to  any  such  delicate  suggestion. 

"  Then  came  a  mid-June  Sunday  morning,  with 
dawn  breaking  a  little  after  three :  a  warm,  wide- 

O  ' 

awake  dawn,  with  the  level  mist  lifted  from  the  level 
surface  of  the  pond  a  full  hour  higher  than  I  had 
seen  it  any  morning  before. 

"  This  was  the  day.  I  knew  it.  I  have  heard  per- 
sons say  that  they  can  hear  the  grass  grow ;  that 
they  know  by  some  extra  sense  when  danger  is  nigh. 
For  a  month  I  had  been  watching,  had  been  brood- 
ing over  this  pond,  and  now  I  knew.  I  felt  a  stirring 
of  the  pulse  of  things  that  the  cold-hearted  turtles 
could  no  more  escape  than  could  the  clods  and  I. 

"  Leaving  my  horse  unhitched,  as  if  he,  too,  un- 
derstood, I  slipped  eagerly  into  my  covert  for  a  look 
at  the  pond.  As  I  did  so,  a  large  pickerel  ploughed 
a  furrow  out  through  the  spatter-docks,  and  in  his 
wake  rose  the  head  of  a  large  painted  turtle.  Swing- 
ing slowly  round,  the  creature  headed  straight  for 


102  THE   SPRING   OF  THE   YEAR 

the  shore,  and,  without  a  pause,  scrambled  out  on 
the  sand. 

"  She  was  nothing  unusual  for  a  turtle,  but  her 
manner  was  unusual  and  the  gait  at  which  she 
moved ;  for  there  was  method  in  it  and  fixed  pur- 
pose. On  she  came,  shuffling  over  the  sand  toward 
the  higher  open  fields,  with  a  hurried,  determined 
sfee-saw  thut  was-  taking  her  somewhere  in  particular, 
and  that  was  bound  to  get  her  there  on  time. 
••':  ?•]  held  my  breath.  Had  she  been  a  dinosaurian 
making  Mesozoic  footprints,  I  could  not  have  been 
more  fearful.  For  footprints  in  the  Mesozoic  mud, 
or  in  the  sands  of  time,  were  as  nothing  to  me  when 
compared  with  fresh  turtle  eggs  in  the  sands  of  this 
pond. 

"But  over  the  strip  of  sand,  without  a  stop,  she 
paddled,  and  up  a  narrow  cow-path  into  the  high 
grass  along  a  fence.  Then  up  the  narrow  cow-path, 
on  all  fours,  just  like  another  turtle,  I  paddled,  and 
into  the  high  wet  grass  along  the  fence. 

"  I  kept  well  within  sound  of  her,  for  she  moved 
recklessly,  leaving  a  wide  trail  of  flattened  grass  be- 
hind. I  wanted  to  stand  up,  —  and  I  don't  believe 
I  could  have  turned  her  back  with  a  rail,  —  but  I 
was  afraid  if  she  saw  me  that  she  might  return  in- 
definitely to  the  pond ;  so  on  I  went,  flat  to  the 
ground,  squeezing  through  the  lower  rails  of  the 
fence,  as  if  the  field  beyond  were  a  melon-patch.  It 
was  nothing  of  the  kind,  only  a  wild,  uncomfortable 


"TAIL  FIRST,  BEGAN  TO  BURY  HERSELF" 


104  THE   SPRING   OF   THE   YEAR 

pasture,  full  of  dewberry  vines,  and  very  discourag- 
ing. They  were  excessively  wet  vines  and  briery.  I 
pulled  my  coat-sleeves  as  far  over  my  fists  as  I  could 
get  them,  and  with  the  tin  pail  of  sand  swinging 
from  between  my  teeth  to  avoid  noise,  I  stumped 
fiercely,  but  silently,  on  after  the  turtle. 

"  She  was  laying  her  course,  I  thought,  straight 
down  the  length  of  this  dreadful  pasture,  when,  not 
far  from  the  fence,  she  suddenly  hove  to,  warped 
herself  short  about,  and  came  back,  barely  clearing 
me.  I  warped  about,  too,  and  in  her  wake  bore 
down  across  the  corner  of  the  pasture,  across  the 
powdery  public  road,  and  on  to  a  fence  along  a  field 
of  young  corn. 

"  I  was  somewhat  wet  by  this  time,  but  not  so 
wet  as  I  had  been  before  wallowing  through  the 
deep,  dry  dust  of  the  road.  Hurrying  up  behind  a 
large  tree  by  the  fence,  I  peered  down  the  corn-rows 
and  saw  the  turtle  stop,  and  begin  to  paw  about  in 
the  loose,  soft  soil.  She  was  going  to  lay! 

"  I  held  on  to  the  tree  and  watched,  as  she  tried 
this  place,  and  that  place,  and  the  other  place. 
But  the  place,  evidently,  was  hard  to  find.  What 
could  a  female  turtle  do  with  a  whole  field  of  possi- 
ble nests  to  choose  from  ?  Then  at  last  she  found  it, 
and,  whirling  about,  she  backed  quickly  at  it  and, 
tail  first,  began  to  bury  herself  before  my  staring 
eyes. 

"  Those  were  not  the  supreme  moments  of  my  life; 


TURTLE   EGGS   FOR  AGASSIZ  105 

perhaps  those  moments  came  later  that  day ;  but  those 
certainly  were  among  the  slowest,  most  dreadfully 
mixed  of  moments  that  I  ever  experienced.  They 
were  hours  long.  There  she  was,  her  shell  just  show- 
ing, like  some  old  hulk  in  the  sand  alongshore.  And 
how  long  would  she  stay  there  ?  and  how  should  I 
know  if  she  had  laid  an  egg? 

"  I  could  still  wait.  And  so  I  waited,  when,  over 
the  freshly  awakened  fields,  floated  four  mellow 
strokes  from  the  distant  town  clock. 

"  Four  o'clock !  Why  there  was  no  train  until 
seven  !  No  train  for  three  hours !  The  eggs  would 
spoil !  Then  with  a  rush  it  came  over  me  that  this 
was  Sunday  morning,  and  there  was  no  regular  seven 
o'clock  train,  —  none  till  after  nine. 

"  I  think  I  should  have  fainted  had  not  the  turtle 
just  then  begun  crawling  off.  I  was  weak  and  dizzy; 
but  there,  there  in  the  sand,  were  the  eggs !  and 
Agassiz !  and  the  great  book !  Why,  I  cleared  the 
fence  —  and  the  forty  miles  that  lay  between  me 
and  Cambridge  —  at  a  single  jump !  He  should  have 
them,  trains  or  no.  Those  eggs  should  go  to  Agas- 
siz by  seven  o'clock,  if  I  had  to  gallop  every  mile 
of  the  way.  Forty  miles !  Any  horse  could  cover  it 
in  three  hours,  if  he  had  to ;  and,  upsetting  the 
astonished  turtle,  I  scooped  out  her  long  white  eggs. 

"  On  a  bed  of  sand  in  the  bottom  of  the  pail  I 
laid  them,  with  what  care  my  trembling  fingers  al- 
lowed ;  filled  in  between  them  with  more  sand ;  so 


106  THE   SPRING   OF   THE   YEAR 

with  layer  after  layer  to  the  rim ;  and  covering  all 
smoothly  with  more  sand,  I  ran  back  for  my  horse. 

"  That  horse  knew,  as  well  as  I,  that  the  turtles 
had  laid,  and  that  he  was  to  get  those  eggs  to  Agas- 
siz.  He  turned  out  of  that  field  into  the  road  on  two 
wheels,  a  thing  he  had  not  done  for  twenty  years, 
doubling  me  up  before  the  dashboard,  the  pail  of 
eggs  miraculously  lodged  between  my  knees. 

"  I  let  him  out.  If  only  he  could  keep  this  pace 
all  the  way  to  Cambridge!  —  or  even  half  way  there, 
I  would  have  time  to  finish  the  trip  on  foot.  I 
shouted  him  on,  holding  to  the  dasher  with  one  hand, 
holding  the  pail  of  eggs  with  the  other,  not  daring 
to  get  off  my  knees,  though  the  bang  on  them,  as 
we  pounded  down  the  wood-road,  was  terrific.  But 
nothing  must  happen  to  the  eggs ;  they  must  not 
be  jarred,  or  even  turned  over  in  the  sand  before 
they  came  to  Agassiz. 

"  In  order  to  get  out  on  the  pike  it  was  necessary 
to  drive  back  away  from  Boston  toward  the  town. 
We  had  nearly  covered  the  distance,  and  were  round- 
ing a  turn  from  the  woods  into  the  open  fields,  when, 
ahead  of  me,  at  the  station  it  seemed,  I  heard  the 
quick,  sharp  whistle  of  a  locomotive. 

"  What  did  it  mean  ?  Then  followed  the  puff, 
puff,  puff,  of  a  starting  train.  But  what  train? 
Which  way  going  ?  And  jumping  to  my  feet  for  a 
longer  view,  I  pulled  into  a  side  road  that  paralleled 
the  track,  and  headed  hard  for  the  station. 


TURTLE   EGGS   FOR  AGASSIZ  107 

"  We  reeled  along.  The  station  was  still  out  of 
sight,  but  from  behind  the  bushes  that  shut  it  from 
view,  rose  the  smoke  of  a  moving  engine.  It  was 
perhaps  a  mile  away,  but  we  were  approaching,  head 
on,  and,  topping  a  little  hill,  I  swept  down  upon  a 
freight  train,  the  black  smoke  pouring  from  the 
stack,  as  the  mighty  creature  pulled  itself  together 
for  its  swift  run  down  the  rails. 

66  My  horse  was  on  the  gallop,  following  the 
track,  and  going  straight  toward  the  coming  train. 
The  sight  of  it  almost  maddened  me  —  the  bare 
thought  of  it,  on  the  road  to  Boston  !  On  I  went; 
on  it  came,  a  half  —  a  quarter  of  a  mile  between  us, 
when  suddenly  my  road  shot  out  along  an  unfenced 
field  with  only  a  level  stretch  of  sod  between  me 
and  the  engine. 

"  With  a  pull  that  lifted  the  horse  from  his  feet, 
I  swung  him  into  the  field  and  sent  him  straight  as 
an  arrow  for  the  track.  That  train  should  carry  me 
and  my  eggs  to  Boston ! 

"  The  engineer  pulled  the  whistle.  He  saw  me 
stand  up  in  the  rig,  saw  my  hat  blow  off,  saw  me 
wave  my  arms,  saw  the  tin  pail  swing  in  my  teeth, 
and  he  jerked  out  a  succession  of  sharp  Halts  !  But 
it  was  he  who  should  halt,  not  I ;  and  on  we  went, 
the  horse  with  a  flounder  landing  the  carriage  on 
top  of  the  track. 

"  The  train  was  already  grinding  to  a  stop ;  but 
before  it  was  near  a  standstill,  I  had  backed  off  the 


108  THE   SPRING   OF   THE  YEAR 

track,  jumped  out,  and,  running  down  the  rails  with 
the  astonished  engineers  gaping  at  me,  had  swung 
aboard  the  cab. 

"  They  offered  no  resistance  ;  they  had  n't  had 
time.  Nor  did  they  have  the  disposition,  for  I  looked 
strange,  not  to  say  dangerous.  Hatless,  dew-soaked, 
smeared  with  yellow  mud,  and  holding,  as  if  it  were 
a  baby  or  a  bomb,  a  little  tin  pail  of  sand ! 

" '  Crazy,'  the  fireman  muttered,  looking  to  the 
engineer  for  his  cue. 

"  I  had  been  crazy,  perhaps,  but  I  was  not  crazy 
now. 

"  '  Throw  her  wide  open/  I  commanded.  '  Wide 
open  !  These  are  fresh  turtle  eggs  for  Professor 
Agassiz  of  Cambridge.  He  must  have  them  before 
breakfast.' 

"  Then  they  knew  I  was  crazy,  and,  evidently 
thinking  it  best  to  humor  me,  threw  the  throttle 
wide  open,  and  away  we  went. 

"  I  kissed  my  hand  to  the  horse,  grazing  uncon- 
cernedly in  the  open  field,  and  gave  a  smile  to  my 
crew.  That  was  all  I  could  give  them,  and  hold  my- 
self and  the  eggs  together.  But  the  smile  was  enough. 
And  they  smiled  through  their  smut  at  me,  though 
one  of  them  held  fast  to  his  shovel,  while  the  other 
kept  his  hand  upon  a  big  ugly  wrench.  Neither  of 
them  spoke  to  me,  but  above  the  roar  of  the  sway- 
ing engine  I  caught  enough  of  their  broken  talk  to 
understand  that  they  were  driving  under  a  full  head 


TURTLE   EGGS  FOR  AGASSIZ  109 

of  steam,  with  the  intention  of  handing  me  over 
to  the  Boston  police,  as  perhaps  the  safest  way  of 
disposing  of  me. 

"  I  was  only  afraid  that  they  would  try  it  at  the 
next  station.  But  that  station  whizzed  past  without 
a  bit  of  slack,  and  the  next,  and  the  next ;  when  it 
came  over  me  that  this  was  the  through  freight, 
which  should  have  passed  in  the  night,  and  was 
making  up  lost  time. 

"  Only  the  fear  of  the  shovel  and  the  wrench  kept 
me  from  shaking  'hands  with  both  men  at  this  dis- 
covery. But  I  beamed  at  them  ;  and  they  at  me.  I 
was  enjoying  it.  The  unwonted  jar  beneath  my  feet 
was  wrinkling  my  diaphragm  with  spasms  of  delight. 
And  the  fireman  beamed  at  the  engineer,  with  a  look 
that  said,  '  See  the  lunatic  grin  ;  he  likes  it ! ' 

"  He  did  like  it.  How  the  iron  wheels  sang  to  me 
as  they  took  the  rails !  How  the  rushing  wind  in  my 
ears  sang  to  me !  From  my  stand  on  the  fireman's 
side  of  the  cab  I  could  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  track 
just  ahead  of  the  engine,  where  the  ties  seemed  to 
leap  into  the  throat  of  the  mile-devouring  monster. 
The  joy  of  it  1  of  seeing  space  swallowed  by  the 
mile ! 

"  I  shifted  the  eggs  from  hand  to  hand  and  thought 
of  my  horse,  of  Agassiz,  of  the  great  book,  of  my 
great  luck,  —  luck,  —  luck,  —  until  the  multitudi- 
nous tongues  of  the  thundering  train  were  all  chim- 
ing Muck!  luck!  luck!'  They  knew!  they  under- 


110  THE   SPRING  OF  THE   YEAR 

stood!  This  beast  of  fire  and  tireless  wheels  was 
doing  its  best  to  get  the  eggs  to  Agassiz ! 

"  We  swung  out  past  the  Blue  Hills,  and  yonder 
flashed  the  morning  sun  from  the  towering  dome  of 
the  State  House.  I  might  have  leaped  from  the  cab 
and  run  the  rest  of  the  way  on  foot,  had  I  not 
caught  the  eye  of  the  engineer  watching  me  nar- 
rowly. I  was  not  in  Boston  yet,  nor  in  Cambridge 
•either.  I  was  an  escaped  lunatic,  who  had  held  up  a 
train,  and  forced  it  to  carry  me  from  Middleboro  to 
Boston. 

"  Perhaps  I  had  overdone  the  lunacy  business. 
Suppose  these  two  men  should  take  it  into  their 
heads  to  turn  me  over  to  the  police,  whether  I 
would  or  no  ?  I  could  never  explain  the  case  in  time 
to  get  the  eggs  to  Agassiz.  I  looked  at  my  watch. 
There  were  still  a  few  minutes  left  in  which  I  might 
explain  to  these  men,  who,  all  at  once,  had  become 
my  captors.  But  how  explain?  Nothing  could  avail 
against  my  actions,  my  appearance,  and  my  little 
pail  of  sand. 

"I  had  not  thought  of  my  appearance  before. 
Here  I  was,  face  and  clothes  caked  with  yellow  mud, 
my  hair  wild  and  matted,  my  hat  gone,  and  in  my  full- 
grown  hands  a  tiny  tin  pail  of  sand,  as  if  I  had  been 
digging  all  night  with  a  tiny  tin  shovel  on  the  shore ! 
And  thus  to  appear  in  the  decent  streets  of  Boston 
of  a  Sunday  morning ! 

"  I  began  to  feel  like  a  lunatic.    The  situation 


TURTLE   EGGS   FOR  AGASSIZ  111 

was  serious,  or  might  be,  and  rather  desperately 
funny  at  its  best.  I  must  in  some  way  have  shown 
my  new  fears,  for  both  men  watched  me  more  sharply. 

"  Suddenly,  as  we  were  nearing  the  outer  freight- 
yard,  the  train  slowed  down  and  came  to  a  stop.  I 
was  ready  to  jump,  but  still  I  had  no  chance.  They 
had  nothing  to  do,  apparently,  but  to  guard  me.  I 
looked  at  my  watch  again.  What  time  we  had  made! 
It  was  only  six  o'clock,  —  a  whole  hour  left  in 
which  to  get  to  Cambridge! 

"  But  I  didn't  like  this  delay.  Five  minutes  — 
ten  —  went  by. 

" '  Gentlemen/  I  began,  but  was  cut  short  by  an 
express  train  coining  past.  We  were  moving  again, 
on  —  into  a  siding  —  on  to  the  main  track  —  on  with 
a  bump  and  a  crash  and  a  succession  of  crashes, 
running  the  length  of  the  train  —  on,  on  at  a  turtle's 
pace,  but  on,  —  when  the  fireman,  quickly  jumping 
for  the  bell-rope,  left  the  way  to  the  step  free,  and  — 

"  I  never  touched  the  step,  but  landed  in  the  soft 
sand  at  the  side  of  the  track,  and  made  a  line  for 
the  freight-yard  fence. 

"There  was  no  hue  or  cry.  I  glanced  over  my 
shoulder  to  see  if  they  were  after  me.  Evidently 
their  hands  were  full,  or  they  did  n't  know  I  had 
gone. 

"  But  I  had  gone ;  and  was  ready  to  drop  over 
the  high  board-fence,  when  it  occurred  to  me  that  I 
might  drop  into  a  policeman's  arms.  Hanging  my 


112  THE   SPRING   OF  THE  YEAR 

pail  in  a  splint  on  top  of  a  post,  I  peered  cautiously 
over  —  a  very  wise  thing  to  do  before  you  jump  a 
high  board-fence.  There,  crossing  the  open  square 
toward  the  station,  was  a  big,  burly  fellow  with  a 
club  —  looking  for  me  ! 

"  I  flattened  for  a  moment,  when  some  one  in  the 
freight-yard  yelled  at  me.  I  preferred  the  policeman, 
and,  grabbing  my  pail,  I  slid  softly  over  to  the  street. 
The  policeman  moved  on  past  the  corner  of  the  sta- 
tion out  of  sight.  The  square  was  free,  and  yonder 
stood  a  cab. 

''Time  was  flying  now.  Here  was  the  last  lap. 
The  cabman  saw  me  coming,  and  squared  away.  I 
waved  a  dollar-bill  at  him,  but  he  only  stared  the 
more.  A  dollar  can  cover  a  good  deal,  but  I  was  too 
much  for  one  dollar.  I  pulled  out  another,  thrust 
them  both  at  him,  and  dodged  into  the  cab,  calling, 
6  Cambridge!' 

"  He  would  have  taken  me  straight  to  the  police- 
station,  had  I  not  said,  '  Harvard  College.  Professor 
Agassiz's  house  !  I've  got  eggs  for  Agassiz,'  push- 
ing another  dollar  up  at  him  through  the  hole. 

"  It  was  nearly  half  past  six. 

"  (  Let  him  go  ! '  I  ordered.  e  Here 's  another  dol- 
lar if  you  make  Agassiz's  house  in  twenty  minutes. 
Let  him  out ;  never  mind  the  police! ' 

"He  evidently  knew  the  police,  or  there  were 
none  around  at  that  time  on  a  Sunday  morning.  We 
went  down  the  sleeping  streets,  as  I  had  gone  down  the 


TURTLE   EGGS   FOR  AGASSIZ  113 

wood-roads  from  the  pond  two  hours  before,  but 
with  the  rattle  and  crash  now  of  a  fire  brigade. 
Whirling  a  corner  into  Cambridge  Street,  we  took 
the  bridge  at  a  gallop,  the  driver  shouting  out  some- 
thing in  Hibernian  to  a  pair  of  waving  arms  and  a 
belt  and  brass  buttons. 

"  Across  the  bridge  with  a  rattle  and  jolt  that  put 
the  eggs  in  jeopardy,  and  on  over  the  cobble-stones, 
we  went.  Hall:  standing,  to  lessen  the  jar,  I  held  the 
pail  in  one  hand  and  held  myself  in  the  other,  not 
daring  to  let  go  even  to  look  at  my  watch. 

"  But  I  was  afraid  to  look  at  the  watch.  I  was 
afraid  to  see  how  near  to  seven  o'clock  it  might  be. 
The  sweat  was  dropping  down  my  nose,  so  close  was 
I  running  to  the  limit  of  my  time. 

"  Suddenly  there  was  a  lurch,  and  I  dived  forward, 
ramming  my  head  into  the  front  of  the  cab,  coming 
up  with  a  rebound  that  landed  me  across  the  small 
of  my  back  on  the  seat,  and  sent  half  of  my  pail  of 
eggs  helter-skelter  over  the  floor. 

"  We  had  stopped.  Here  was  Agassiz's  house; 
and  without  taking  time  to  pick  up  the  eggs  that 
were  scattered,  I  jumped  out  with  my  pail  and 
pounded  at  the  door. 

"  No  one  was  astir  in  the  house.  But  I  would  stir 
some  one.  And  I  did.  Right  in  the  midst  of  the 
racket  the  door  opened.  It  was  the  maid. 

"  *  Agassiz,'  I  gasped,  '  I  want  Professor  Agassiz, 
quick  ! '  And  I  pushed  by  her  into  the  hall. 


114  THE   SPRING  OF  THE   YEAR 

" '  Go  'way,  sir.  I  '11  call  the  police.  Professor 
Agassiz  is  in  bed.  Go  'way,  sir ! ' 

" (  Call  him  —  Agassiz  — instantly,  or  I  '11  call  him 
myself.' 

"  But  I  did  n't ;  for  just  then  a  door  overhead  was 
flung  open,  a  great  white-robed  figure  appeared  on 
the  dim  landing  above,  and  a  quick  loud  voice  called 
excitedly,  — 

"'  Let  him  in  !  Let  him  in.  I  know  him.  He  has 
my  turtle  eggs  ! ' 

"  And  the  apparition,  slipperless,  and  clad  in  any- 
thing but  an  academic  gown,  came  sailing  down  the 
stairs. 

"The  maid  fled.  The  great  man,  his  arms  ex- 
tended, laid  hold  of  me  with  both  hands,  and  drag- 
ging me  and  my  precious  pail  into  his  study,  with  a 
swift,  clean  stroke  laid  open  one  of  the  eggs,  as  the 
watch  in  my  trembling  hands  ticked  its  way  to  seven 
—  as  if  nothing  unusual  were  happening  to  the  his- 
tory of  the  world." 


CHAPTER   XII 

AN    ACCOUNT    WITH    NATURE 

THERE  were  chipmunks  everywhere.  The  stone 
walls  squeaked  with  them.  At  every  turn, 
from  early  spring  to  early  autumn,  a  chip- 
munk was  scurrying  away  from  me.  Chipmunks 
were  common.  They  did  no  particular  harm,  no  par- 
ticular good ;  they  did  nothing  in  particular,  being 
only  chipmunks  and  common,  or  so  I  thought,  until 
one  morning  (it  was  June-bug  time)  when  I  stopped 
and  watched  a  chipmunk  that  sat  atop  the  stone  wall 
down  in  the  orchard.  He  was  eating,  and  the  shells 
of  his  meal  lay  in  a  little  pile  upon  the  big  flat  stone 
which  served  as  his  table. 

They  were  acorn-shells,  I  thought;  yet  June 
seemed  rather  late  in  the  season  for  acorns,  and, 
looking  closer,  I  discovered  that  the  pile  was  entirely 
composed  of  June-bug  shells  —  wings  and  hollow 
bodies  of  the  pestiferous  beetles ! 

Well,  well!  I  had  never  seen  this  before,  never 
even  heard  of  it.  Chipmunk,  a  useful  member  of 
society !  actually  eating  bugs  in  this  bug-ridden  world 
of  mine!  This  was  interesting  and  important.  Why, 
I  had  really  never  known  Chipmunk,  after  all ! 

So  I  had  n't.  He  had  always  been  too  commont 


116  THE   SPRING   OF  THE  YEAR 

Flying  squirrels  were  more  worth  while,  because 
there  were  none  on  the  farm.  Now,  however,  I  deter- 
mined to  cultivate  the  acquaintance  of  Chipmunk, 
for  there  might  be  other  discoveries  awaiting  me. 
And  there  were. 

A  narrow  strip  of  grass  separated  the  orchard  and 
my  garden-patch.  It  was  on  my  way  to  the  garden 
that  I  most  often  stopped  to  watch  this  chipmunk, 
or  rather  the  pair  of  them,  in  the  orchard  wall.  June 
advanced,  the  beetles  disappeared,  and  the  two  chip- 
munks in  the  wall  were  now  seven,  the  young  ones 
almost  as  large  as  their  parents,  and  both  young  and 
old  on  the  best  of  terms  with  me. 

For  the  first  time  in  four  years  there  were  pros- 
pects of  good  strawberries.  Most  of  my  small  patch 
was  given  over  to  a  new  variety,  one  that  I  had 
originated;  and  I  was  waiting  with  an  eagerness 
which  was  almost  anxiety  for  the  earliest  berries. 

I  had  put  a  little  stick  beside  each  of  the  three 
big  berries  that  were  reddening  first  (though  I  could 
have  walked  from  the  house  blindfolded  and  picked 
them).  I  might  have  had  the  biggest  of  the  three  on 
June  7th,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  flavor  I  thought 
it  best  to  wait  another  day.  On  the  8th  I  went 
down  to  get  it.  The  big  berry  was  gone,  and  so  was 
one  of  the  others,  while  only  half  of  the  third  was 
left  on  the  vine! 

Gardening  has  its  disappointments,  its  seasons  of 
despair  —  and  wrath,  too.  Had  a  toad  showed  him- 


CHIPMUNK  EATING  JUNE-BUGS 


118  THE  SPRING  OF   THE  YEAR 

self  at  that  moment,  he  might  have  fared  badly,  for 
more  than  likely,  I  thought,  it  was  he  who  had  stolen 
my  berries.  On  the  garden  wall  sat  a  friendly  chip- 
munk eying  me  sympathetically. 

A  few  days  later  several  fine  berries  were  ripe,  and 
I  was  again  on  my  way  to  the  garden  when  I  passed 
the  chipmunks  in  the  orchard.  A  shining  red  spot 
among  the  vine-covered  stones  of  their  wall  brought 
me  to  a  stop.  For  an  instant  I  thought  that  it  was  my 
rose-breasted  grosbeak,  and  that  I  was  about  to  get  a 
clew  to  its  nest.  Then  up  to  the  slab  where  he  ate  the 
June-bugs  scrambled  the  chipmunk,  and  the  rose-red 
spot  on- the  breast  of  the  supposed  grosbeak  dissolved 
into  a  big  scarlet-red  strawberry.  And  by  its  long 
wedge  shape  I  knew  it  was  one  of  my  new  variety. 

I  hurried  across  to  the  patch  and  found  every 
berry  gone,  while  a  line  of  bloody  fragments  led  me 
back  to  the  orchard  wall,  where  a  half-dozen  fresh 
calyx  crowns  completed  my  second  discovery. 

No,  it  did  not  complete  it.  It  took  a  little  watch- 
ing to  find  out  that  the  whole  family  —  all  seven ! 
—  were  after  those  berries.  They  were  picking  them 
half  ripe,  even,  and  actually  storing  them  away,  can- 
ning them,  down  in  the  cavernous  depths  of  the 
stone-pile! 

Alarmed?  Yes,  and  I  was  wrathful,  too.  The  taste 
for  strawberries  is  innate,  original;  you  can't  be 
human  without  it.  But  joy  in  chipmunks  is  a  culti- 
vated liking.  What  chance  in  such  a  circumstance 


AN  ACCOUNT  WITH  NATURE  119 

has  the  nature-lover  with  the  human  man?  What 
shadow  of  doubt  as  to  his  choice  between  the  chip- 
munks and  the  strawberries  ? 

I  had  no  gun  and  no  time  to  go  over  to  my  neigh- 
bor's to  borrow  his.  So  I  stationed  myself  near  by 
with  a  fistful  of  stones,  and  waited  for  the  thieves 
to  show  themselves.  I  came  so  near  to  hitting  one  of 
them  with  a  stone  that  the  sweat  started  all  over  me. 
After  that  there  was  no  danger.  I  had  lost  my  nerve. 
The  little  scamps  knew  that  war  had  been  declared, 
and  they  hid  and  dodged  and  sighted  me  so  far  off 
that  even  with  a  gun  I  should  have  been  all  summer 
killing  the  seven  of  them. 

Meantime,  a  good  rain  and  the  warm  June  days 
were  turning  the  berries  red  by  the  quart.  They  had 
more  than  caught  up  to  the  chipmunks.  I  dropped 
my  stones  and  picked.  The  chipmunks  picked,  too ; 
so  did  the  toads  and  the  robins.  Everybody  picked. 
It  was  free  for  all.  We  picked  them  and  ate  them, 
jammed  them,  and  canned  them.  I  almost  carried 
some  over  to  my  neighbor,  but  took  peas  instead. 

The  strawberry  season  closed  on  the  Fourth  of 
July ;  and  our  taste  was  not  dimmed,  nor  our  natural 
love  for  strawberries  abated  ;  but  all  four  of  the 
small  boys  had  hives  from  over-indulgence,  so  boun- 
tifully did  Nature  provide,  so  many  did  the  seven 
chipmunks  leave  us  ! 

Peace  between  me  and  the  chipmunks  had  been 
signed  before  the  strawberry  season  closed,  and  the 


120  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

pact  still  holds.  Other  things  have  occurred  since  to 
threaten  it,  however.  Among  them,  an  article  in  a 
recent  number  of  an  out-of-door  magazine,  of  wide 
circulation.  Herein  the  chipmunk  family  was  most 
roundly  rated,  in  fact  condemned  to  annihilation  be- 
cause of  its  wicked  taste  for  birds'  eggs  and  for  the 
young  birds.  Numerous  photographs  accompanied 
the  article,  showing  the  red  squirrel  with  eggs  in 
his  mouth,  but  no  such  proof  (even  the  red  squirrel 
photographs,  I  strongly  believe,  were  done  from  a 
stuffed  squirrel)  of  Chipmunk's  guilt,  though  he  was 
counted  equally  bad  and,  doubtless,  will  suffer  with 
Chickaree  at  the  hands  of  those  who  have  taken  the 
article  seriously. 

I  believe  that  would  be  a  great  mistake.  Indeed, 
I  believe  the  article  a  deliberate  falsehood,  concocted 
in  order  to  sell  the  made-up  photographs.  Chipmunk 
is  not  an  egg-sucker,  else  I  should  have  found  it  out. 
But  of  course  that  does  not  mean  that  no  one  else 
has  found  it  out.  It  does  mean,  however,  that  if 
Chipmunk  robs  at  all  he  does  it  so  seldom  as  to  call 
for  no  alarm  or  retribution. 

There  is  scarcely  a  day  in  the  nesting-season  when 
I  fail  to  see  half  a  dozen  chipmunks  about  the  walls, 
yet  I  have  never  noticed  one  even  suspiciously  near 
a  bird's  nest.  In  an  apple  tree,  scarcely  six  jump? 
from  the  home  of  the  family  in  the  orchard  wall,  a 
brood  of  tree  swallows  came  to  wing  this  spring  ; 
while  robins,  chippies,  and  red-eyed  vireos  —  not  to 


AN  ACCOUNT   WITH  NATURE  121 

mention  a  cowbird,  which  I  wish  they  had  devoured 
—  have  also  hatched  and  flown  away  from  nests  that 
these  squirrels  might  easily  have  rifled. 

It  is  not  often  that  one  comes  upon  even  the  red 
squirrel  in  the  very  act  of  robbing  a  nest.  But  the 
black  snake,  the  glittering  fiend!  and  the  dear 
house  cats !  If  I  run  across  a  dozen  black  snakes  in 
the  early  summer,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  six  of  them 
are  discovered  to  me  by  the  cries  of  the  birds  that 
they  are  robbing.  So  is  it  with  the  cats.  No  creature 
larger  than  a  June-bug,  however,  is  often  distressed 
by  a  chipmunk.  In  a  recent  letter  to  me  Mr.  Bur- 
roughs says : — 

"•No,  I  never  knew  the  chipmunk  to  suck  or  de- 
stroy eggs  of  any  kind,  and  I  have  never  heard  of 
any  well-authenticated  instance  of  his  doing  so. 
The  red  squirrel  is  the  sinner  in  this  respect,  and 
probably  the  gray  squirrel  also." 

It  will  be  difficult  to  find  a  true  bill  against  him. 
Were  the  evidence  all  in,  I  believe  that  instead  of  a 
culprit  we  should  find  Chipmunk  a  useful  citizen. 
Does  not  that  pile  of  June-bug  bodies  on  the  flat 
stone  leave  me  still  in  debt  to  him  ?  He  may  err 
occasionally,  and  may,  on  occasion,  make  a  nuisance 
of  himself  —  but  so  do  my  four  small  boys,  bless 
them  !  And,  well,  —  who  doesn't?  When  a  family 
of  chipmunks,  which  you  have  fed  all  summer  on 
the  veranda,  take  up  their  winter  quarters  inside  the 
closed  cabin,  and  chew  up  your  quilts,  hammocks, 


122  THE   SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

table-cloths,  and  whatever  else  there  is  of  chewable 
properties,  then  they  are  anathema. 

The  havoc  certain  chipmunks  in  the  mountains 
once  made  among  our  possessions  was  dreadful.  But 
instead  of  exterminating  them  root  and  branch,  a  big 
box  was  prepared  the  next  summer  and  lined  with 
tin,  in  which  the  linen  was  successfully  wintered. 

But  how  real  was  the  loss,  after  all  ?  Here  was  a 
rough  log  cabin  on  the  side  of  Thorn  Mountain. 
What  sort  of  table-cloth  ought  to  be  found  in  such  a 
cabin,  if  not  one  that  has  been  artistically  chewed 
by  chipmunks?  Is  it  for  fine  linen  that  we  take  to 
the  woods  in  summer?  The  chipmunks  are  well 
worth  a  table-cloth  now  and  then  —  well  worth,  be- 
sides these,  all  the  strawberries  and  all  the  oats  they 
can  steal  from  my  small  patch. 

Only  it  is  n't  stealing.  Since  I  ceased  throwing 
stones  and  began  to  watch  the  chipmunks  carefully, 
I  do  not  find  that  their  manner  is  in  the  least  the  man- 
ner of  thieves.  They  do  not  act  as  if  they  were  taking 
what  they  have  no  right  to.  For  who  has  told  Chip- 
munk to  earn  his  oats  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow  ?  No 
one.  Instead,  he  seems  to  understand  that  he  is  one 
of  the  innumerable  factors  ordained  to  make  me 
sweat  —  a  good  and  wholesome  experience  for  me  so 
long  as  I  get  the  necessary  oats. 

And  I  get  them,  in  spite  of  the  chipmunks,  though 
I  don't  like  to  guess  at  the  quantity  of  oats  they  have 
carried  off  —  anywhere,  I  should  say,  from  a  peck  to  a 


AN  ACCOUNT   WITH  NATURE  123 

bushel,  which  they  have  stored  as  they  tried  to  store 
the  berries,  somewhere  in  the  big  recesses  of  the 
stone  wall. 

All  this,  however,  is  beside  the  point.  It  is  n't  a 
case  of  oats  and  berries  against  June-bugs.  You 
don't  haggle  with  Nature  after  that  fashion.  The 
farm  is  not  a  market-place  where  you  get  exactly 
what  you  pay  for.  You  must  spend  on  the  farm  all 
you  have  of  time  and  strength  and  brains ;  but  you 
must  not  expect  in  return  merely  your  money's  worth. 
Infinitely  more  than  that,  and  oftentimes  less.  Farm- 
ing is  like  virtue,  —  its  own  reward.  It  pays  the  man 
who  loves  it,  no  matter  how  short  the  crop  of  oats  and 
corn. 

So  it  is  with  Chipmunk.  Perhaps  his  books  don't 
balance  — a  few  June-bugs  short  on  the  credit  side. 
What  then?  It  is  n't  mere  bugs  and  berries,  as  I 
have  just  suggested,  but  stone-piles.  What  is  the 
difference  in  value  to  me  between  a  stone-pile  with 
a  chipmunk  in  it  and  one  without.  Just  the  difference, 
relatively  speaking,  between  the  house  with  my  four 
boys  in  it,  and  the  house  without. 

Chipmunk,  with  his  sleek,  round  form,  his  rich 
color  and  his  stripes,  is  the  daintiest,  most  beautiful 
of  all  our  squirrels.  He  is  one  of  the  friendliest  of 
my  tenants,  too,  friendlier  even  than  the  friendliest  of 
my  birds  —  Chickadee.  The  two  are  very  much  alike 
in  spirit;  but  however  tame  and  confiding  Chickadee 
may  become,  he  is  still  a  bird  and  belongs  to  a  different 


124  THE   SPRING   OF  THE  YEAR 

and,  despite  his  wings,  lower  order  of  beings.  Chick 
adee  is  often  curious  about  me  ;  he  can  be  coaxed  to 
eat  from  my  hand.  Chipmunk  is  more  than  curious; 
he  is  interested ;  and  it  is  not  crumbs  that  he  wants, 
but  friendship.  He  can  be  coaxed  to  eat  from  my  lips, 
sleep  in  my  pocket,  and  even  come  to  be  stroked. 

I  have  sometimes  seen  Chickadee  in  winter  when 
he  seemed  to  come  to  me  out  of  very  need  for  living 
companionship.  But  in  the  flood-tide  of  summer  life 
Chipmunk  will  watch  me  from  his  stone-pile  and  tag 
me  along  with  every  show  of  friendship. 

The  family  in  the  orchard  wall  have  grown  very 
familiar.  They  flatter  me.  One  or  another  of  them, 
sitting  upon  the  high  flat  slab,  sees  me  coming.  He 
sits  on  the  very  edge  of  the  crack,  to  be  truthful; 
and  if  I  take  a  single  step  aside  toward  him,  he  flips, 
and  all  there  is  left  of  him  is  a  little  angry  squeak 
from  the  depths  of  the  stones.  If,  however,  I  pass 
properly  along,  do  not  stop  or  make  any  sudden  mo- 
tion, he  sees  me  past,  then  usually  follows  me,  espe- 
cially if  I  get  well  off  and  pause. 

During  a  shower  one  day  I  halted  under  a  large 
hickory  just  beyond  his  den.  He  came  running  after 
me,  so  interested  that  he  forgot  to  look  to  his  foot- 
ing, and  just  opposite  me  slipped  and  bumped  his 
nose  hard  against  a  stone — so  hard  that  he  sat  up 
immediately  and  vigorously  rubbed  it.  Another  time 
he  followed  me  across  to  the  garden  and  on  until  he 
came  to  the  barbed-wire  fence  along  the  meadow. 


AN  ACCOUNT   WITH  NATURE  125 

Here  he  climbed  a  post  and  continued  after  me  by  way 
of  the  middle  strand  of  the  wire,  wriggling,  twisting, 
even  grabbing  the  barbs,  in  his  efforts  to  maintain 
his  balance.  He  got  midway  between  the  posts,  when 
the  sagging  strand  tripped  him  and  he  fell  with  a 
splash  into  a  shallow  pool  below.  No,  he  did  not 
drown,  but  his  curiosity  did  get  a  ducking. 

Did  the  family  in  the  orchard  wall  stay  together 
as  a  family  for  the  first  summer  ?  I  should  like  to 
know.  As  late  as  August  they  all  seemed  to  be 
in  the  wall ;  for  in  August  I  cut  my  oats,  and  during 
this  harvest  we  all  worked  together. 

I  mowed  the  oats  as  soon  as  they  began  to  yellow, 
cocking  them  to  cure  for  hay.  It  was  necessary  to 
let  them  "  make  "  for  six  or  seven  days,  and  all  this 
time  the  chipmunks  raced  back  and  forth  between 
the  cocks  and  the  stone  wall.  They  might  have 
hidden  their  gleanings  in  a  dozen  crannies  nearer  at 
hand;  but  evidently  they  had  a  particular  store- 
house, near  the  home  nest,  where  the  family  could 
get  at  their  provisions  in  bad  weather  without  com- 
ing forth. 

Had  I  removed  the  stones  and  dug  out  the  nest, 
I  should  have  found  a  tunnel  leading  into  the  ground 
for  a  few  feet  and  opening  into  a  chamber  filled  with 
a  bulky  grass  nest  —  a  bed  capable  of  holding  half 
a  dozen  chipmunks  —  and,  adjoining  this,  by  a  short 
passageway,  the  storehouse  of  the  oats. 

How  many  trips  they  made  between  this  crib  and 


126  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

the  oat-patch,  how  many  kernels  they  carried  in 
their  pouches  at  a  trip,  and  how  big  a  pile  they  had 
when  all  the  grains  were  in,  —  these  are  more  of  the 
things  I  should  like  to  know. 

When  the  first  frosts  come,  the  family  —  if  they 
are  still  a  family — seek  the  nest  in  the  ground 
beneath  the  stone  wall.  But  they  do  not  go  to  sleep 
immediately.  Their  outer  entrances  have  not  yet 
been  closed.  There  is  still  plenty  of  fresh  air  and, 
of  course,  plenty  of  food  —  acorns,  chestnuts,  hick- 
ory-nuts, and  oats.  They  doze  quietly  for  a  time  and 
then  they  eat,  pushing  the  empty  shells  and  hulls 
into  some  side  passage  prepared  beforehand  to  receive 
the  debris. 

But  soon  the  frost  is  creeping  down  through  the 
stones  and  earth  overhead,  the  rains  are  filling  the 
outer  doorways  and  shutting  off  the  supply  of  fresh 
air;  and  one  day,  though  not  sound  sleepers,  the 
family  cuddle  down  and  forget  to  wake  entirely  until 
the  frost  has  begun  to  creep  back  toward  the  sur- 
face, and  in  through  the  softened  soil  is  felt  the 
thrill  of  the  waking  spring. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


WOODS    MEDICINE 

THE  real  watcher  in  the  woods  usually  goes 
off  by  himself.    He  hates  to  have  anybody 
along;  for  Anybody  wants  to  be  moving  all 
the  time,  and  Anybody  wants  to  be  talking  all  the 
time,  and  Anybody  wants  to  be  finding  a  circus,  or 
a  zoo,  or  a  natural  history  museum  in  the  middle  of 
the  woods,  else  Anybody  wishes  he  had  stayed  at 
home  or  gone  to  the  ball-game. 

Now  I  always  say  to 
r  Mr.  Anybody  when 
he  asks  me  to 
take  him  into 
the  woods, "  Yes, 
come  along,  if  you 
can  stand  stock-still 
for  an  hour,  without 
budging ;  if  you  can 
keep  stock-still  for 


128  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

an  hour,  without  talking ;  if  you  can  get  as  excited 
watching  two  tumble-bugs  trying  to  roll  their  ball 
up  hill,  as  you  do  watching  nine  baseball  men  try- 
ing to  bat  their  ball  about  a  field." 

The  doctor  pulled  a  small  blankbook  out  of  his  vest 
pocket,  scribbled  something  in  Latin  and  Chinese  (at 
least  it  looked  like  Chinese),  and  then  at  the  bottom 
wrote  in  English,  "Take  one  teaspoonful  every 
hour " ;  and,  tearing  off  the  leaf,  handed  it  to  the 
patient.  It  was  a  prescription  for  some  sort  of  med- 
icine. 

Now  I  am  going  to  give  you  a  prescription,  —  for 
some  woods  medicine,  —  a  magic  dose  that  will  cure 
you  of  blindness  and  deafness  and  clumsy-footed- 
ness,  that  will  cause  you  to  see  things  and  hear 
things  and  think  things  in  the  woods  that  you  have 
never  thought  or  heard  or  seen  in  the  woods  before. 
Here  is  the  prescription :  — 

WOOD  CHUCK,  M.  D., 

MULLEIN  HILL. 
Office  Hours : 
5.30  A.M.  until  Breakfast. 


R 


No  moving  for  one  hour  .  .  . 
No  talking  for  one  hour  .  .  . 
No  dreaming  or  thumb-twiddling  the  while  .  ,  . 

Sig:  The  dose  to  be  taken  from  the  top  of  a  stump  with 
a  bit  of  sassafras  bark  or  a  nip  of  Indian  turnip 
every  time  you  go  into  the  woods. 

WOOD  CHUCK. 


WOODS   MEDICINE  129 

I  know  that  this  compound  will  cure  if  you  begin 
taking  it  early  enough  —  along,  I  should  say,  from 
the  Fifth  to  the  Eighth  Grades.  It  is  a  very  diffi- 
cult dose  to  take  at  any  age,  but  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible for  grown-ups  to  swallow  it ;  for  they  have  so 
many  things  to  do,  or  think  they  have,  that  they 
can't  sit  still  a  whole  hour  anywhere — a  terrible 
waste  of  time!  And  then  they  have  been  talking  for 
so  many  years  that  to  stop  for  a  whole  hour  might 
—  kill  them,  who  knows  !  And  they  have  been  work- 
ing nervously  with  their  hands  so  long  that  their 
thumbs  will  twiddle,  and  to  sleep  they  will  go  the 
minute  they  sit  down,  in  spite  of  themselves.  It  is 
no  use  to  give  this  medicine  to  grown-ups.  They 
are  what  Dr.  Wood  Chuck  calls  "  chronics  "  —  hope- 
less burners  who  will  never  sit  down  upon  a  stump, 
who,  when  the  Golden  Chariot  comes  for  them,  will 
stand  up  and  drive  all  the  way  to  heaven. 

However,  I  am  not  giving  this  medicine  to  grown- 
ups, but  to  you.  Of  course  you  will  make  a  bad  face 
over  it,  too ;  for,  young  or  old,  it  is  hard  to  sit  still 
and  even  harder  to  keep  still  —  I  mean  not  to  talk. 
I  have  closely  watched  four  small  boys  these  sev- 
eral years  now,  and  I  never  knew  one  of  them  to 
sit  still  for  a  whole  hour  at  home  —  not  once  in 
his  whole  life!  And  as  for  his  tongue!  he  might 
tuck  that  into  his  cheek,  hold  it  down  between  his 
teeth,  crowd  it  back  behind  his  fist  —  no  matter. 
The  tongue  is  an  unruly  member.  But  let  these  four 


130 


THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 


boys  get  into  the  woods,  and  every  small  pale-face 
of  them  turns  Indian  instinctively,  tip-toeing  up  and 
down  the  ridges  with  lips  as  close-sealed  as  if  some 
finger  of  the  forest  were  laid  upon  them.  So  it  must 
be  with  you  when  you  enter  the  fields  and  woods. 
The  wood-born  people  are  all  light-footed  and  cau- 
tious in  their  stir- 
ring.    Only    the 
box  turtles  scuff 
carelessly  along; 
and    that  is   be- 
cause   they    can 
shut     themselves 
up  —  head,  paws, 
tail  —  inside  their 


lidded  shells, 
and  defy  their 
enemies. 

The  skunk, 
however,  is 
sometimes  care- 
less in  his  go- 
ing ;  for  he 
knows  that  he  will  neither  be  crowded  nor  jostled 
along  the  street,  so  he  naturally  behaves  as  if  all 
the  woods  were  his.  Yet,  how  often  do  you  come 
upon  a  skunk  ?  Seldom  —  because,  he  is  quite  as 
unwilling  to  meet  you  as  you  are  to  meet  him ;  but 
as  one  of  your  little  feet  makes  as  much  noise  in 


WOODS    MEDICINE  131 

the  leaves  as  all  four  of  his,  he  hears  you  coming 
and  turns  quietly  down  some  alley  or  in  at  some  bur- 
row and  allows  you  to  pass  on. 

Louder  than  your  step  in  the  woods  is  the  sound 
of  your  voice.  Perhaps  there  is  no  other  noise  so 
far-reaching,  so  alarming,  so  silencing  in  the  woods 
as  the  human  voice.  When  your  tongue  begins,  all 
the  other  tongues  cease.  Songs  stop  as  by  the  snap 
of  a  violin  string;  chatterings  cease  ;  whisperings 
end  —  mute  are  the  woods  and  empty  as  a  tomb, 
except  the  wind  be  moving  aloft  in  the  trees. 

Three  things  all  the  animals  can  do  supremely 
well :  they  can  hear  well ;  they  can  see  motion  well ; 
they  can  wait  well. 

If  you  would  know  how  well  an  animal  can  wait, 
scare  Dr.  Wood  Chuck  into  his  office,  then  sit  down 
outside  and  wait  for  him  to  come  out.  It  would  be  a 
rare  and  interesting  thing  for  you  to  do.  No  one  has 
ever  done  it  yet,  I  believe !  Establish  a  world's  record 
for  keeping  still !  But  you  should  scare  him  in  at  the 
beginning  of  your  summer  vacation  so  as  to  be  sure 
you  have  all  the  waiting-time  the  state  allows  :  for  you 
may  have  to  leave  the  hole  in  September  and  go  back 
to  school. 

When  the  doctor  wrote  the  prescription  for  this 
medicine,  "  No  moving  for  an  hour,"  he  was  giving 
you  a  very  small,  a  homeopathic  dose  of  patience,  as 
you  can  see;  for  an  hour  at  a  time,  every  wood- 
watcher  knows,  will  often  be  only  a  waste  of  time, 


132  THE   SPRING   OF  THE   YEAR 

unless  followed  immediately  by  another  hour  of 
the  same. 

On  the  road  to  the  village  one  day,  I  passed  a 
fox-hunter  sitting  atop  an  old  stump.  It  was  about 
seven  o'clock  in  the  morning, 

"  Hello,  Will !  "  I  called,  "  been  out  all  night?" 

"No,  got  here  'bout  an  hour  ago,"  he  replied. 

I  drove  on  and,  returning  near  noon,  found  Will 
still  atop  the  stump. 

"Had a  shot  yet?"  I  called. 

"  No,  the  dogs  brought  him  down  'tother  side  the 
brook,  and  carried  him  over  to  the  Shanty  field." 

About  four  o'clock  that  afternoon  I  was  hurry- 
ing down  to  the  station,  and  there  was  Will  atop 
that  same  stump. 

"Got  him  yet?"  I  called. 

"No,  dogs  are  fetching  him  over  the  Quarries  now" 
—  and  I  was  out  of  hearing. 

It  was  growing  dark  when  I  returned;  but  there 
was  Will  Hall  atop  the  stump.  I  drew  up  in  the  road. 

"Grown  fast  to  that  stump,  Will?"  I  called. 
"  Want  me  to  try  to  pull  you  off?" 

"  No,  not  yet,"  he  replied,  jacking  himself  pain- 
fully to  his  feet.  "Chillin'  up  some,  ain't  it?"  he 
added  shaking  himself.  "  Might 's  well  go  home,  I 
guess"  —  when  from  the  direction  of  Young's  Mead- 
ows came  the  eager  voice  of  his  dogs;  and,  waving 
me  on,  he  got  quickly  back  atop  the  stump,  his 
gun  ready  across  his  knees. 


WOODS    MEDICINE  138 

I  was  nearly  home  when,  through  the  muffle  of 
the  darkening  woods,  I  heard  the  quick  bang  !  bang  ! 
of  Will's  gun. 

Yes,  he  got  him,  a  fine  red  fox.  And  speaking  to 
me  about  it  one  day,  he  said,  — 

"  There  's  a  lot  more  to  sittin'  still  than  most  folks 
thinks.  The  trouble  is,  most  folks  in  the  woods  can't 
stand  the  monopoly  of  it." 

Will's  English  needs  touching  up  in  spots ;  but 
he  can  show  the  professors  a  great  many  things 
about  the  ways  of  the  woods. 

And  now  what  does  the  doctor  mean  by  "  No 
dreaming  or  thumb-twiddling"  in  the  woods?  Just 
this  :  that  not  only  must  you  be  silent  and  motionless 
for  hours  at  a  time,  but  you  must  also  be  alert  — 
watchful,  keen,  ready  to  take  a  hint,  to  question, 
guess,  and  interpret.  The  fields  and  woods  are  not 
full  of  life,  but  full  only  of  the  sounds,  shadows,  and 
signs  of  life. 

You  are  atop  of  your  stump,  when  over  the  ridge 
you  hear  a  slow,  quiet  rustle  in  the  dead  leaves  —  a 
skunk ;  then  a  slow,  loud  rustle  —  a  turtle  ;  then  a 
quick,  loud — one-two-tliree — rustle —  a  chewink; 
then  a  tiny,  rapid  rustle  —  a  mouse  ;  then  a  long, 
rasping  rustle  —  a  snake  ;  then  a  measured,  gallop- 
ing rustle — a  squirrel;  then  a  light-heavy,  hop-thump 
rustle —  a  rabbit;  then  —  and  not  once  have  you 
seen  the  rustlers  in  the  leaves  beyond  the  ridge;  and 
not  once  have  you  stirred  from  your  stump. 


134  THE  SPRING   OF  THE  YEAR, 

Perhaps  this  understanding  of  the  leaf-sounds 
might  be  called  "  interpretation  "  ;  but  before  you 
can  interpret  them,  you  must  hear  them;  and  no 
dozing,  dreaming,  fuddling  sitter  upon  a  stump  has 
ears  to  hear. 

As  you  sit  there,  you  notice  a  blue  jay  perched 
silent  and  unafraid  directly  over  you  —  not  an  ordi- 
nary, common  way  for  a  blue  jay  to  act.  "Why?" 
you  ask.  Why,  a  nest,  of  course,  somewhere  near ! 
Or,  suddenly  round  and  round  the  trunk  of  a  large 
oak  tree  whirls  a  hummingbird.  "Queer,"  you  say. 
Then  up  she  goes  —  and  throwing  your  eye  ahead 
of  her  through  the  tree-tops  you  chance  to  intercept 
her  bee-line  flight  —  a  hint !  She  is  probably  gather- 
ing lichens  for  a  nest  which  she  is  building  some- 
where near,  in  the  direction  of  her  flight.  A  whirl! 
a  flash  ! —  as  quick  as  light!  You  have  a  wonderful 
story ! 

Now  do  not  get  the  impression  that  all  one  needs 
to  do  in  order  to  become  acquainted  with  the  life  of 
the  woods  is  to  sit  on  a  stump  a  long  time,  say  noth- 
ing, and  listen  hard.  All  that  is  necessary  —  rather, 
the  ability  to  do  it  is  necessary ;  but  in  the  woods  or 
out  it  is  also  necessary  to  exercise  common  sense. 
Guess,  for  instance,  when  guessing  is  all  that  you 
can  do.  You  will  learn  more,  however,  and  learn  it 
faster,  generally,  by  following  it  up,  than  by  sitting 
on  a  stump  and  guessing  about  it. 

At  twilight,  in  the  late  spring  and  early  summer, 


WOODS   MEDICINE  135 

we  frequently  hear  a  gentle,  tremulous  call  from  the 
woods  or  from  below  in  the  orchard.  "  What  is  it?  " 
I  had  been  asked  a  hundred  times,  and  as  many  times 
had  guessed  that  it  might  be  the  hen  partridge  cluck- 
ing to  her  brood ;  or  else  I  had  replied  that  it  made 
me  think  of  the  mate-call  of  a  coon,  or  that  I  half 
inclined  to  believe  it  the  cry  of  the  woodchucks,  or 
that  possibly  it  might  be  made  by  the  owls.  In  fact, 
I  did  n't  know  the  peculiar  call,  and  year  after  year  I 
kept  guessing  at  it. 

We  were  seated  one  evening  on  the  porch  listening 
to  the  whip-poor-wills,  when  some  one  said,  "  There  's 
your  woodchuck  singing  again."  Sure  enough,  there 
sounded  the  tremulous  woodchuck-partridge-owl-coon 
cry.  I  slipped  down  through  the  birches  determined 
at  last  to  know  that  cry  and  stop  guessing  about  it, 
if  I  had  to  follow  it  all  night. 

The  moon  was  high  and  full,  the  footing  almost 
noiseless,  and  everything  so  quiet  that  I  quickly 
located  the  clucking  sounds  as  coming  from  the 
orchard.  I  came  out  of  the  birches  into  the  wood- 
road,  and  was  crossing  the  open  field  to  the  orchard, 
when  something  dropped  with  a  swish  and  a  vicious 
clacking  close  upon  my  head.  I  jumped  from  under 
my  hat,  almost,  —  and  saw  the  screech  owl  swoop 
softly  up  into  the  nearest  apple  tree.  Instantly  she 
turned  toward  me  and  uttered  the  gentle  purring 
cluck  that  I  had  been  guessing  at  so  hard  for  at  least 
three  years.  And  even  while  I  looked  at  her,  I  saw 


136  THE  SPRING  OF  THE  YEAR 

in  the  tree  beyond,  silhouetted  against  the  moonlit 
sky,  two  round  bunches,  —  young  owls  evidently,  — 
which  were  the  explanation  of  the  calls.  These  two, 
and  another  young  one,  were  found  in  the  orchard 
the  following  day. 

I  rejoined  the  guessers  on  the  porch  and  gave 
them  the  satisfying  fact,  but  only  after  two  or  three 
years  of  guessing  about  it.  I  had  laughed  once  at 
some  of  my  friends  over  on  the  other  road  who  had 
bolted  their  front  door  and  had  gone  out  of  the 
door  at  the  side  of  the  house  for  precisely  twenty- 
one  years  because  the  key  in  the  front-door  lock 
wouldn't  work.  They  were  intending  to  have  it 
fixed,  but  the  children  being  little  kept  them  busy ; 
then  the  children  grew  up,  and  of  course  kept  them 
busier  ;  got  married  at  last  and  left  home —  all  but 
one  daughter.  Still  the  locksmith  was  not  called  to 
fix  that  front  door.  One  day  this  unmarried  daugh- 
ter, in  a  fit  of  impatience,  got  at  that  door  herself, 
and  found  that  the  key  had  been  inserted  just 
twenty-one  years  before  —  upside  down  ! 

There  I  had  sat  on  the  porch — on  a  stump,  let 
us  say,  and  guessed  about  it.  Truly,  my  key  to  this 
mystery  had  been  left  long  in  the  lock,  upside  down, 
while  I  had  been  going  in  and  out  by  the  side  door. 

No,  you  must  go  into  the  fields  and  woods,  go  deep 
and  far  and  frequently,  with  eyes  and  ears  and  all 
your  souls  alert ! 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS 

CHAPTER   I 

TO    THE    TEACHER 

Put  the  question  to  your  scholars  individually  :  Who  is  your  mes- 
senger of  spring  ?  Make  the  reading  of  this  book  not  an  end  in  itself, 
but  only  a  means  toward  getting  the  pupils  out  of  doors.  Never  let 
the  reading  stop  with  the  end  of  the  chapter,  any  more  than  you 
would  let  your  garden  stop  with  the  buying  of  the  seeds.  And  how 
eager  and  restless  a  healthy  child  is  for  the  fields  and  woods  with 
the  coming  of  spring  !  Do  not  let  your  opportunity  slip.  Go  with 
them  after  reading  this  chapter  (re-reading  if  you  can  the  first  chap- 
ter in  "  The  Fall  of  the  Year"  )  out  to  some  meadow  stream  where 
they  can  see  the  fallen  stalks  and  brown  matted  growths  of  the 
autumn  through  which  the  new  spring  shoots  are  pushing,  green 
with  vigor  and  promise.  The  seal  of  winter  has  been  broken  ;  the 
pledge  of  autumn  has  been  kept ;  the  life  of  a  new  summer  has 
started  up  from  the  grave  of  the  summer  past.  Here  by  the  stream 
under  your  feet  is  the  whole  cycle  of  the  seasons  —  the  dead  stalks, 
the  empty  seed-vessels,  the  starting  life. 

Let  the  children  watch  for  the  returning  birds  and  report  to  you  ; 
have  them  bring  in  the  opening  flowers,  giving  them  credit  (on  the 
blackboard)  for  each  new  flower  found;  go  with  them  (so  that  they 
will  not  bring  the  eggs  to  you)  to  see  the  new  nests  discovered,  teach- 
ing them  by  every  possible  means  the  folly  and  cruelty  of  robbing 
birds'  nests,  of  taking  life  ;  while  at  the  same  time  you  show  them 
the  beauty  of  life,  its  sacredness,  and  manifold  interests. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  1 

Have  you   ever  seen   a   "  spring    peeper "    peeping  ?   You  will 
hear,  these  spring  nights,  many  distinct  notes   in  the  marshes, 


138  NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS 

and  when  you  have  seen  all  of  the  lowly  musicians  you  will  be  a 
fairly  accomplished  naturalist.  Let  the  discovery  of  "  Who 's  Who 
among  the  Frogs  "  this  spring  be  one  of  your  first  outdoor  studies. 
The  picture  shows  you  Pickering's  hyla,  blowing  his  bagpipe. 
Arbutus:  trailing  arbutus  (Epigcea  repens),  sometimes  called 
ground-laurel,  and  mayflower,  fishflower  (in  New  Jersey). 
hepatwa:  liver-leaf  (Hepatica  triloba). 

Spice-bush  :  wild  allspice,  fever-bush,  Benjamin-bush  (Benzoin 
cestivale}. 

Wood-pussy  •  the  skunk,  who  comes  out  of  his  winter  den  very 
early  in  spring,  and  whose  scent  is  one  of  the  characteristic  odors 
of  a  New  England  spring. 

PAGE  2 

Ail  white  and  still :  The  whole  poem  will  be  found  on  the  last  page 
of  "  Winter,"  the  second  book  in  this  series. 

tnllium:  the  wake-robin.  Read  Mr.  Burroughs's  book  "Wake- 
Robin,"  —  the  first  of  his  outdoor  books. 

PAGE  4 

phoebe .•  See  the  chapter  called  "  The  Palace  in  the  Pig-Pen." 
bloodroot :  Sanguinaria  canadensis,    See  the  picture  on  this  page. 
So  named  because  of  the  red-orange  juice  in  the  root-stalks,  used 
by  the  Indians  as  a  stain. 

marsh-marigolds :  The  more  common  but  incorrect  name  is  "  cow- 
slip." The  marsh-marigold  is  Caltha  palustris  and  belongs  with 
the  buttercup  and  wind-flower  to  the  Crowfoot  Family.  The 
cowslip,  a  species  of  primrose,  is  a  European  plant  and  belongs 
to  the  Primrose  Family. 

PAGE  5 

woolly-bear :  caterpillar  of  the  Isabella  tiger  moth,  the  common 

caterpillar,  brown  in   the  middle  with  black   ends,  whose  hairs 

look  as  if  they  had  been  clipped,  so  even  are  they. 

mourning-cloak:  See  picture,  page  77  of  "Winter,"  the  second 

book  of  this  series.  The  antiopa  butterfly. 

j uncos :  the  common  slate-colored  "snowbirds." 

witch-hazel:  See  picture,  page  28  of   "The  Fall  of  the  Year"; 

read  description  of  it  on  pages  31-33  of  the  same  volume. 

bluets :  or  "  innocence  "  (Houstonia  ccerulea). 

PAGE  6 

the  Delaware  ?  the  Delaware  River,  up  which  they  come  in  order 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  139 

to  lay  their  eggs.  As  they  come  up  they  are  caught  in  nets  and 

their  eggs  or  "  roe  "  salted  and  made  into  caviar. 

Cohansey  Creek :  a  small  river  in  New  Jersey. 

Lupton's  Meadows  ;  local  name  of  meadows  along  Cohansey  Creek. 


CHAPTER   II 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Read  Kipling's  story  in  "  The  Second  Jungle  Book  "  called  "  The 
Spring  Running."  Both  Jungle  Books  ought  to  be  in  your  school 
library.  Spring  is  felt  on  the  ocean  as  well  as  over  the  land;  life  is  all 
of  one  piece;  the  thrill  we  feel  at  the  touch  of  spring  is  felt  after  his 
manner  and  degree  by  bird  and  beast  and  by  the  fish  of  the  sea.  Go 
back  to  the  last  paragraph  of  chapter  I  for  the  thought.  Here  I  have 
expanded  that  thought  of  the  tides  of  life  rising.  See  the  picture  of 
the  herring  on  their  deep  sea  run  on  page  345  of  the  author's 
"  Wild  Life  Near  Home."  Let  the  chapter  suggest  to  the  pupils 
the  mysterious  powers  of  the  minds  of  the  lower  animals. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  7 

Mowgli:  Do  you  know  Mowgli  of  "The  Jungle  Book"? 

Chaucer:  the  "Father  of  English  Poetry."    This  is  one  of  the 

opening  lines  of  the  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales. 
PAGE  8 

migrating  birds  :  See  "  The  Great  Tidal  Waves  of  Bird  Life  "  by 

D.  Lange,  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly  "  for  August,  1909. 
PAGE  9 

The  cold-blooded :  said  of  those  animals  lower  than  the  mammals 

and  birds,  that  have  not  four-chambered  hearts  and  the  complete 

double  blood-circulation. 

Weymouth  Back  River:  of  Weymouth,  Massachusetts. 
PAGE  10 

catfish  :  or  horn-pout  or  bull-pout,  see  picture,  page  12. 
PAGE  11 

stickleback :  The  little  male  stickleback  builds  a  nest,  drives  the 

female  into  it  to  lay  her  eggs,  then  takes  charge  of  the  eggs  until 

the  fry  hatch  out  and  go  off  for  themselves, 


140  NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS 

CHAPTER  III 

TO    THE   TEACHER 

You  will  try  to  get  three  suggestions  out  of  this  chapter  for  your 
pupils  :  First,  that  an  old  tree  with  holes  may  prove  to  be  the  most 
fruitful  and  interesting  tree  in  the  neighborhood,  that  is  to  say, 
nothing  out  of  doors  is  so  far  fallen  to  pieces,  dead,  and  worthless 
as  to  be  passed  by  in  our  nature  study.  (Read  to  them  "  Second 
Crops  "  in  the  author's  "  A  Watcher  in  the  Woods.")  Secondly  :  the 
humble  tree-toad  is  well  worth  the  most  careful  watching,  for  no  one 
yet  has  told  us  all  of  his  life-story.  Thirdly:  one  of  the  benefits  of 
this  simple,  sincere  love  of  the  out-of-doors  will  come  to  us  as  rest, 
both  in  mind  and  body,  as  contentment,  too,  and  clearer  understanding 
of  what  things  are  worth  while. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  14 

burlap  petticoat :  a  strip  of  burlap  about  six  inches  wide  tied  with 

a  string  and  folded   over  about  the  trunks  of  the  trees  under 

which   the  night-feeding  gypsy  moth  caterpillars  hide  by  day. 

The  burlaps  are  lifted  and  the  worms  killed. 

a  peddler's  stall :  In  the  days  of  the   author's  boyhood  peddlers 

sold  almost  everything  that  the  country  people  could  want. 
PAGE  16 

grim-beaked  baron :  the  little  owl  of  the  tree. 

keep:  an  older  name  for  castle  ;  sometimes  for  the  dungeon. 
PAGE  20 

for  him  to  call  the  summer  rain  :  alluding  to  his  evening  and  his 

cloudy-day  call  as  a  sign  of  coming  rain. 
PAGE  22 

castings :  the  disgorged  lumps  of  hair   and  bones  of  the  small 

animals  eaten  by  the  owls. 
PAGE  24 

Altair  and  Arcturus  :  prominent  stars  in  the  northern  hemisphere 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  141 

CHAPTER  IV 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

See  the  suggestions  for  the  corresponding  chapter  in  "  The  Fall 
of  the  Year,"  the  first  volume  in  this  series.  Lest  you  may  not  have 
that  book  at  hand,  let  me  repeat  here  the  gist  of  what  I  said  there  : 
that  you  make  this  chapter  the  purpose  of  one  or  more  field  excur- 
sions with  the  class  —  in  order  to  see  with  your  own  eyes  the  charac- 
teristic sights  of  spring  as  recorded  here  ;  secondly,  that  you  use  this, 
and  chapters  vi  and  x,  as  school  tests  of  the  pupils'  knowledge  and 
observation  of  his  own  fields  and  woods  ;  and  thirdly,  let  the  items 
mentioned  here  be  used  as  possible  subjects  for  the  pupils'  further 
study  as  themes  for  compositions,  or  independent  investigations  out 
of  school  hours.  The  finest  fruit  the  teacher  oan  show  is  a  school  full 
of  children  personally  interested  in  things.  And  what  better  things 
than  live  things  out  of  doors  ? 


CHAPTER  V 

TO   THE  TEACHER 

I  might  have  used  a  star,  or  the  sun,  or  the  sea  to  teach  the  lesson 
involved  here,  instead  of  the  crow  and  his  three  broken  feathers. 
But  these  three  feathers  will  do  for  your  pupils  as  the  falling  apple 
did  for  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  The  point  of  the  chapter  is:  that  the 
feathers  like  the  stars  must  round  out  their  courses  ;  that  this  uni- 
verse is  a  universe  of  law,  of  order,  and  of  reason,  even  to  the  wing 
feathers  of  a  crow.  Try  to  show  your  pupils  the  beauty  and  wonder 
of  order  and  law  (not  easy  to  do)  as  well  as  the  beauty  and  wonder 
of  shapes  and  colors  and  sounds,  etc. 


FOR  THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  34 

primaries,  secondaries,  tertials :  Turn  to  your  dictionary  under 
"  Bird  "  (or  at  the  front  of  some  good  bird  book)  and  study  out 
just  which  feathers  of  the  wing  these  named  here  are. 


142  NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS 

PAGE  35 

half-moulted  hen :  Pick  her  up  and  notice  the  regular  and  system- 
atic arrangement  of  the  young  feathers.   Or  take  a  plucked  hen 
and  draw  roughly  the  pin-feather  scheme  as  you  find  it  on  her 
body. 
PAGE  37 

reed-birds  :  The  bobolink  is  also  called  "  rice-bird >?  from  its  habit 
of  feeding  in  the  rice-fields  of  the  South  on  its  fall  migration. 

CHAPTER  VI 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 

Do  not  stop  doing  or  seeing  or  hearing  when  you  have  done,  seen, 
and  heard  the  few  things  suggested  in  this  chapter  and  in  chapters 
iv  and  x  ;  for  these  are  only  suggestions,  and  merely  intended  to 
give  you  a  start,  as  if  your  friend  had  said  to  you  upon  your  visiting 
a  new  city,  "Now,  don't  fail  to  see  the  Common  and  the  old  State 
House,  etc. ;  and  don't  fail  to  go  down  to  T  Wharf,  etc.,"  —  knowing 
that  all  the  time  you  would  be  doing  and  seeing  and  hearing  a  thou- 
sand interesting  things. 

CHAPTER   VII 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

I  called  this  chapter  when  I  first  wrote  it  "The  Friendship  of 
Nature  " — a  much  used  title,  but  entirely  suggestive  of  the  thought 
aad  the  lesson  in  the  story  here.  This  was  first  written  about  six 
years  ago,  and  to-day,  May  12, 1912,  that  pair  of  phcebes,  or  another 
pair,  have  their  nest  out  under  the  pig-pen  roof  as  they  have  had  every 
year  since  I  have  known  the  pen.  Repeat  and  expand  the  thought  as 
I  have  put  it  into  the  mouth  of  Nature  in  the  first  paragraph  —  "  We 
will  share  them  [the  acres]  together."  Instill  into  your  pupils'  minds 
the  large  meaning  of  obedience  to  Nature's  laws  and  love  for  her  and 
all  her  own.  Show  them  also  how  ready  Nature  is  (and  all  the  birds 
and  animals  and  flowers)  to  be  friendly;  and  how  even  a  city  door- 
yard  may  hold  enough  live  wild  things  for  a  small  zoo.  This  chapter 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  143 

might  well  be  made  use  of  by  the  city  teacher  to  stir  her  pupils  to 
see  what  interesting  live  things  their  city  or  neighborhood  has,  al- 
though the  woods  and  open  fields  are  miles  away. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 

PAGE  48 

a  hornet's  nest :  the  white-faced  hornet,  that  builds  the  great  cone- 
shaped  paper  nests. 

swifts  thunder  in  the  chimney:  See  chapter  vn  (and  notes)  in 
"  Winter."  For  the  "  thunder  "  see  section  ix  in  chapter  X  of 
this  book. 

PAGE  49 

cabbage  'butterfly ;  a  pest ;  a  small  whitish  butterfly  with  a  few 
small  black  spots.  Its  grubs  eat  cabbage. 

PAGE  54 

the  crested  flycatcher :  is  the  largest  of  the  family;  builds  in  holes  ; 
distinguished  by  its  use  of  cast-off  snake-skins  in  its  nests. 
kingbird :  Everybody  knows  him,  for  it  is  usually  he  who  chases 
the  marauding  crows;  he  builds,  out  in  the  apple  tree  if  he  can, 
a  big,  bulky  nest  with  strings  a-flying  from  it :  also  called  "bee- 
martin,"  a  most  useful  bird. 

wood  pewee :  builds  on  the  limbs  of  forest  trees  a  most  beautiful 
nest,  much  like  a  hummingbird's,  only  larger.  Pewee's  soft,  pen- 
sive call  of  "  pe-e-e-wee  "  in  the  deep,  quiet,  dark-shrouded  sum- 
mer woods  is  one  of  the  sweetest  of  bird  notes. 
chebec:  a  little  smaller  than  a  sparrow  ;  builds  a  beautiful  nest  in 
orchard  trees  and  says  "  chebec,  chebec,  chebec." 

PAGE  58 

One  had  died :  After  phoebe  brings  off  her  first  brood  sprinkle  a 
little  tobacco-dust  or  lice-powder,  such  as  you  use  in  the  hen- 
yard,  into  the  nest  to  kill  the  vermin.  Otherwise  the  second  and 
third  broods  may  be  eaten  alive  by  lice  or  mites. 

CHAPTER   VIII 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

In  "  Winter  "  I  put  a  chapter  called  "  The  Missing  Tooth,"  showing 
the  dark  and  bitter  side  of  the  life  of  the  wild  things;  here  I  have 


144  NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS 

taken  that  thought  as  most  people  think  of  it  (see  Burroughs's  essay, 
"A  Life  of  Fear"  in  "Riverby  ")  and  in  the  light  of  typical  exam- 
ples tried  to  show  that  wild  life  is  not  fear,  but  peace  and  joy.  The 
kernel  of  the  chapter  is  found  in  the  words:  "The  level  of  wild 
life,  the  soul  of  all  nature,  is  a  great  serenity."  Let  the  pupils  watch 
and  report  instances  of  fear  (easy  to  see)  and  in  the  same  animals 
instances  of  peace  and  joy. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  60 

gray  harrier :  so  named  because  of  his  habit  of  flying  low  and 
"  harrying,"  that  is,  hunting,  catching  small  prey  on  or  near  the 
ground.  "  Harry  "  comes  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  word  for  army, 

PAGE  61 

"  He  looketk  as  it  were  a  grym  leoun  :  from  Chaucer's  description 
of  the  Cock  in  the  story  of  the  Cock  and  the  Fox. 

PAGE  62 

terrible  pike:  closely  related  to  the  pickerel. 

kingfisher:  builds  in  holes  in  sand-banks  near  water.  Its  peculiar 

rattle  sounds  like  the  small  boys'  "clapper." 

PAGE  63 

"  The  present  only  toucheth  thee!"  Burns's  poem  "To  a  Mouse." 

PAGE  64 

"  The  fair  music  that  all  creatures  made"  :  from  Milton's  poem  "To 
a  Solemn  Music,"  "  solemn  "  meaning  "  orchestral  "  music. 

PAGE  65 

then  doubling  once  more:  This  is  all  figurative  language.  I  am 
thinking  of  myself  as  the  fox.  The  dogs  have  run  themselves  to 
death  on  my  trail,  and  I  am  turning  back,  "doubling,"  to  have  a 
look  at  them  and  to  rejoice  over  their  defeat. 

PAGE  71 

pine  marten  .•  The  marten  is  so  rare  in  this  neighborhood  that  I 
am  inclined  to  think  the  creature  was  the  large  weasel. 

PAGE  73 

the  heavy  bar  across  their  foreheads :  a  very  unusual  way  of  yoking 
oxen  in  the  United  States.  The  only  team  I  ever  saw  here  so  yoked, 

PAGE  74 

San  Francisco:  alluding  to  the  earthquake  and  fire  which  nearly 
wiped  out  the  city  in  190G. 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  145 

CHAPTER   IX 

FOR  THE   PUPIL 

The  picture  of  the  young  buzzard  is  as  true  as  a  photograph;  the 
humped-up  drawing  of  the  old  bird  looks  precisely  as  she  did  atop 
her  dead  tree,  watching  iny  approach.  This  vulture  rarely  soars  into 
New  England  skies  ;  down  South,  especially  along  the  coast,  the 
smaller  black  vulture  (Catharista  urubu)  is  found  very  tame  and  in 
great  abundance  ;  while  in  the  far  Southwest  lives  the  great  condor. 
PAGE  80 

tulip  poplar :  tulip-tree  (Liriodendron  tulipifera). 
"For  it  had  bene an  auncient  tree  " ;  from  Edmund  Spenser's  "  Shep- 
herd's Calendar." 
PAGE  85 

a  dozen  kinds  of  cramps :  Perhaps  you  will  say  I  didn't  find  much 
in  finding  the  buzzard's  nest,  and  got  mostly  cramps  !  Yes,  but  I 
also  got  the  buzzard's  nest  —  a  thing  that  I  had  wanted  to  see  for 
many  years.  It  was  worth  seeing,  however,  for  its  own  sake. 
Even  a  buzzard  is  interesting.  See  the  account  of  him  in  "  Wild 
Life  Near  Home,"  the  chapter  called  "  A  Buzzard's  Banquet." 

CHAPTER   XI 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

The  point  of  the  story  is  the  enthusiasm  of  the  naturalists  for  their 
work —  work  that  to  the  uncaring  and  unknowing  seemed  not  even 
worth  while.  But  all  who  do  great  things  do  them  with  all  their 
might.  No  one  can  stop  to  count  the  cost  whose  soul  is  bent  on  great 
things. 

FOR  THE  PUPIL 

PAGE  94 

Burlington:  in  Vermont. 

Concord  and  Middleboro* :  in   Massachusetts. 

Zadoc  Thompson :  a  Vermont  naturalist. 

D.  Henry  Thoreau :  better  known  as  Henry  D.  Thoreau  ;  author 

of  "  Walden,"  etc. 


146  NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS 

/.  W.  P.  Jenks:  for  many  years  head  of  Pierce  Academy, 
Middleboro,  and  later  Professor  of  Agricultural  Zoology  in  Brown 
University. 

PAGE  96 

Contributions:  used  in  place  of  the  whole  name:  Go  yourself  into 
the  public  library  and  read  this  and  look  at  the  four  large  volumes. 

PAGE  101 

spatter-docks:  yellow  pond-lily  (Nuphar  advena). 

PAGE  102 

dinosaurian  :  one  of  the  fossil  reptile  monsters  of  the  Mesozoic, 
or  "  middle,"  period  of  the  earth's  history,  before  the  age  of  man. 

CHAPTER  XII 

TO    THE    TEACHER 

In  this  story  I  have  tried  to  settle  the  difficult  question  of  debit 
and  credit  between  me  and  the  out-of-doors.  Shall  we  exterminate 
the  red  squirrels,  the  hawks,  owls,  etc.,  is  a  question  that  is  not  so 
easily  answered  as  one  might  think.  The  fact  is  we  do  not  want  to 
exterminate  any  of  our  native  forms  of  life  —  we  need  them  all, 
and  owe  them  more,  each  of  them,  for  the  good  they  do  us,  than  they 
owe  us  for  the  little  harm  they  may  do  us.  Read  this  over  with  the 
children  with  its  moral  and  economic  lesson  in  view.  Send  to  the 
National  Association  of  Audubon  Societies,  New  York  City,  for  their 
free  leaflets  upon  this  matter.  The  Pennsylvania  Department  of  Agri- 
culture, Harrisburg,  Pa.,  has  a  bulletin  upon  this  same  subject  which 
will  be  sent  free  upon  application. 

FOR  THE  PUPIL 
PAGE  115 

June-bug :  the  very  common  brown  beetle  whose  big  white  grubs 
you  dig  up  under  the  sod  and  in  composts. 

PAGE  118 

rose-breasted  grosbeak :  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  our  birds, 
and  a  lovely  singer. 

PAGE  120 

Chickaree :  the  common  name  of  the  red  squirrel.  The  red  squir- 
rel does  not  need  to  be  destroyed. 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  147 

tree  swallows:  They  build  in  holes  in  orchard  trees,  etc.;  to  be  dis- 
tinguished on  the  wing  from  the  barn  swallows  by  their  white 
bellies  and  plain,  only  slightly  forked  tails. 
chippies  :  the  little  chipping  sparrow,  or  hair-bird. 
red-eyed  vireos  :  the  most  common  of  the  vireos  ;  see  picture  of  its 
nest  on  page  40  of  "  Winter." 

PAGE  121 

cowbird:  the  miserable  brown-headed  blackbird  that  lays  its  egg  or 
eggs  in  smaller  birds'  nests  and  leaves  its  young  to  be  fed  by  the 
unsuspecting  foster-mother.  As  the  young  cowbird  is  larger  than 
the  rightful  young,  it  gets  all  the  food  and  causes  them  to  starve. 

PAGE  122 

Thorn  Mountain :  one  of  the  smaller  of  the  White  Mountains  .; 
it  overlooks  the  village  of  Jackson,  N.  H. 

CHAPTER  XIII 

TO    THE    TEACHER 

If  you  have  read  through  "  The  Fall  of  the  Year  "  and  "Winter  " 
and  to  this  chapter  in  "  The  Spring  of  the  Year,"  you  will  know 
that  the  upshot  of  these  thrice  thirteen  readings  has  been  to  take 
you  and  your  children  into  the  woods  ;  you  will  know  that  the  last 
paragraph  of  this  last  chapter  is  the  aim  and  purpose  and  key  of  all 
three  books.  You  must  go  into  the  woods,  you  must  lead  your  chil- 
dren to  go,  deep  and  far  and  frequently.  The  Three  R's  first  —  but 
after  them,  before  dancing,  or  cooking,  or  sewing,  or  manual  train- 
ing, or  anything,  send  your  children  out  into  the  open,  where  they 
belong.  The  school  can  give  them  nothing  better  than  the  Three  R's, 
and  can  only  fail  in  trying  to  give  them  more,  except  it  give  them 
the  freedom  of  the  fields.  Help  Nature,  the  old  nurse,  to  take  your 
children  on  her  knee. 

FOR  THE  PUPIL 
PAGE  128 

Here  is  the  prescription:  Think  you  can  swallow  it  ?  Go  out  and  try 
PAGE  129 

Golden  Chariot :  In  what  Bible  story  does  the  Golden  Chariot 

descend  ?  and  whom  does  it  carry  away  ? 

pale-face  :  an  Indian  name  for  the  white  man. 


148  NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS 

PAGE  130 

box  turtles :  They  are  sometimes  found  as  far  north  as  the  woods 
of  Cape  Cod,  Massachusetts  ;  but  are  very  abundant  farther  south. 
PAGE  133 

Chewink :  towhee,  or  ground-robin;  to  be  distinguished  by  his  loud 
call  of  "  chewink  "  and  his  vigorous  scratching  among  the  leaves 


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